


Mikey Way and the Quest for the Stone

by Roxy_palace



Category: Bandom
Genre: AU, Drugs, Guns, Indiana Jones - Freeform, M/M, Mikey Way's Faily Kung Fu, Movie crossover, Romancing The Stone, Some potty talk, Swearing, deathdefying feats, drug use and drug related violence, handle bar moustaches, jokes about drug running, mock violence, people shooting at Mikey, the 80s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-15 21:47:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roxy_palace/pseuds/Roxy_palace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“I’m in Colombia!” Mikey said, raising his voice over the crackle of a poor connection.</i><br/>“No. no, no, no, no,” James wailed.<br/>Mikey could really relate to his disbelief. He couldn't believe he was in mother fucking Colombia either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mikey Way and the Quest for the Stone

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Stuffsit Exchange, 2011. This fic is based very loosely on _Romancing the Stone_ a really wonderful 80s, post-modern Rom-Com staring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas. There are also nods to Indiana Jones and the Goonies. The 80s were another country, dude.  
>  It was also inspired by a Tweet by one Iero, Frank A, regarding his daughter seeing a resemblance between him and Harrison Ford. Be flattered, Frank.  You really are a hero.  
> Also, a nod to Stephen King for supplying Mikey with the best Twilight smack down of all time.
> 
> Immeasurable thanks to my betas, [](http://anna-unfolding.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**anna_unfolding**](http://anna-unfolding.dreamwidth.org/)  , [](http://mizubyte.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**mizubyte**](http://mizubyte.dreamwidth.org/)  , [](http://alasse.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**alasse**](http://alasse.dreamwidth.org/)   and [](http://greedy-dancer.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://greedy-dancer.dreamwidth.org/)**greedy_dancer**   who made this story what it is. You read it over and over, gave excellent advice, suggested the best changes, and you put up with my freak outs like bosses.  Your hand holding and care was pretty awesome. 
> 
> Finally, huge thanks to the mods for running the exchange. Your hard work made the whole thing go so smoothly and funnly.  Funnly isn't a word.  I made it up just for you. ;)

***

 

_"You must understand," Edgar said, looming above her like a pale, yet surprisingly well-built wraith in the night. "You are my life now, Ella."_

_"I do understand," Ella sighed, tilting her neck and offering the pale column of her throat to him like a gift. "Drink…"_

_Edgar ~~leaned~~ loomed ~~letchedretchedfetchedbleched~~ *delete*  
_

Mikey pushed away from his computer, spinning himself round and round and round on his office chair. “Drink, drink, drinky drink,” he said and sighed. He watched the bookcase-lined room flit past as he twirled, wondering how on earth he'd written himself, and his characters, into this corner.

Grabbing the edge of the desk to stop spinning, he pulled himself closer to the keyboard and took a deep breath.

_“You are my life now, Ella.”_

Mikey leaned on the desk and pushed his fingers up under his glasses to massage his eyes.

There was no way to deny it. The book was shit.

He took another deep breath.

As his finger hovered above the delete key, moments from consigning whiny obsessive Ella and her dead-and-hating-it beau Edgar to the trash can for all time, Mikey had a momentary vision of hoards of vengeful _Moonies_ baring down on him, preparing to rend him limb from limb.

 _"We want the 'Hawk' and 'Sparrow' to consummate their timeless love!!"_ The hoard screeched. _"We want Moonlight Book Five! YOU PROMISED!"_

Mikey shook his head. “Moonies rhymes with Loonies," he said to himself, and pulled his hand back from the keys, nudging a towering stack of fan mail balanced on the edge of his desk as he did.

The nickname used to make Mikey laugh. Now, not so much. He couldn’t really understand the relationship he’d written anymore, or why it was so popular with his readers. Not that Mikey knew jack shit about relationships. The longest one Mikey had ever had was with his left hand. He sighed. What was he _doing_.

Before he could work himself up into a real round of existential angst, the sound of a Skype call coming in broke the moment. Mikey shuddered. The call cut off only to start again a couple of seconds later.

Happy for the distraction, Mikey answered and was puzzled to see the stern round face of Jack White fill the screen. Mikey blinked.

It was a picture of Jack White on the cover of Rolling Stone.

The Rolling Stone in which his most recent, and least flattering, interview appeared. _Oh, shit._

With a droll lilt, a voice from behind the magazine said, " _I don't think I would have been interested in my novels when I was a teenager._ "

Mikey sighed. "Hey James," said Mikey, rubbing his hands on his thighs. He had kind of been waiting for this call.

The eyes of James Dewees, the editor who’d taken his funny little college story about a vampire getting a crush on a girl 85 years his junior and turned it into the number one fantasy romance best-seller of all time, appeared over the top of the magazine.

James continued reading. " _I would never tell anyone to read one of my books’, says Way, whose novels_ \- in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past five years - _are beloved of teenage girls and middle age women all over the world._ "

James Dewees was not beloved of teenage girls and middle age women. James Dewees was the kind of guy middle age women warned teenage girls about.

" _Not when there are so many superior works of fiction for young people to be reading_ ,” James read on.

Mikey took a deep breath and settled in. This could take a while.

“Wait, there’s more...” said James, fixing Mikey with a narrowed stare and holding up his hand.

He pointed at the page. “ _‘Personally, I preferred Batman and that kind of thing. Harry Potter, you know? Even Dungeons and Dragons is better than reading my books because it, like, teaches you so many life skills,’_ and then the journo says, _'Way pushes up his glasses and shrugs because. That’s all. He has. To say. On the subject.’_ ”

James squinted. “ _That_ was all you had to say on the subject?”

Mikey spun away from the desk a little. Stopping in front of the screen again, he pushed his glasses up and shrugged.

"Why, Mikey? Why?” James asked, pulling on his thinning hair a little bit.“You're supposed to make people _want_ to read the goddamned books we publish." He chucked the magazine over his shoulder and leaned into his camera. "Not head straight to Barnes and Noble for a 12 sided die and a copy of the Fortean Times!"

"Well, playing a half elf when your brother’s an Ork _and_ the Dungeon Master taught me a lot about self control.”

"But...” James whined.

"Also, Harry Potter is about, like, on a number of levels, confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity, ” said Mikey, avoiding James’ eyes by shuffling through some of the fan mail pile.

"Yes, but your books...”

"My books,” said Mikey, cutting him off. “Are about how neat it is to have a boyfriend.”

James went silent.

Mikey picked out an envelope from the pile and tore it open.

Inside was a multi-paged letter with a photo of the letter-writing Moonie clutching a ragged copy of _Moon Under Water_ to her chest, grinning widely. She was wearing a tee shirt with Mikey’s face on it.

"Mikey,” James said gently. “I know you wouldn't know it, on account of how you haven't had a date since 1997, but it is in fact ‘neat’ to have a boyfriend."

Mikey gave James his most withering look over the rim of his glasses and got an eye roll back.

“Honestly, when was the last time you went out? When was the last time you got _laid_?”

“Ungh,” Mikey groaned, it was his turn to role his eyes.

James disappeared from view and Mikey heard what sounded like him scrabbling round on the floor. He came back up with the magazine again and shook it at the camera. “Also, has Gerard read this? He’d be the first to tell you you’re as worthy as Rowling or any of them, Mikey. Where is Gerard, anyway?" He chucked it over his shoulder again.

"Oh, you know,” Mikey said, putting down the photo and letter and flipping through the rest of the mail.

Another envelope in the pile caught his eye. It was a big office type envelope and had about thirty stamps on it, stuck all over the place as if someone had slapped them on in a mad panic, or in the middle of a psychotic break. He picked it up and flipped it over.

James raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I know Gee,” he said. “ _And_ I know that _Gerard Way_ is the best cover artist in the history of publishing. It'd be cheaper to get some schmuck to do it all in Photoshop, but it'd never have his magic.” James sighed.

Mikey let James’ moaning about Gerard and the business and the Way brothers in general wash over him. The many-stamped envelope was posted from Cartagena, Colombia. Gerard was in Colombia. He liked to travel. That’s what he did when he wasn’t designing book covers or baiting James Dewees with Mikey.

Besides, Mikey would have recognized the spidery scrawl of the address anywhere. _Gee_.

"...Because I could have been a writer, too Mikey. I coulda, but...”

“Hmmm,” said Mikey.

“But sabotaging interviews? Sabotaging interviews with Rolling Stone? No, no.”

Mikey looked up. "Dude. Margaret wanted me to say I based Edgar on Jared Leto,” he said, interrupting James mid-rant. “Because I have a crush on him.”

"Oh, yeah. Well,” said James, wincing and running his hands through his – blue this week – hair. “She ran the numbers with the ‘demographic’ and, ah, Leto came up tops."

Mikey just looked at James, who at least had the good grace to look sheepish.

James took a deep breath. "Mikey, man, this isn't like the old days – you and Gerard in a dorm room, drinking your roommate’s beers and giggling over the plot all night." He held his hand up before Mikey could correct him. "You have a contract now."

Mikey didn't have much to say to that. Their mom’s house, Grandma, the hospital bills... That five book deal had taken care of it all. He owed the publisher that book.

“Anyway, you know where Gee is James,” Mikey said with a sigh. He tore open the envelope; inside was a bulky piece of paper, folded numerous times, looking well thumbed and battered. Mikey frowned, turning the envelope upside down and shaking it. There was nothing else.

He unfolded the paper and spread it out on his desk. It looked like some kind of crazy map art thing. There were geographic features drawn in detail with flamboyant - Spanish? - calligraphy curling between them. In the center was a blood red X next to the words _El Corazon_.

“What?” James said.

“Hmmm? Oh, Gerard,” said Mikey, rubbing his chin and picking up the envelope again. “He's in Colombia. He’s been in Colombia for weeks. On the art pilgrimage thing. Remember?”

Of course, that’s what this was, some kind of art project thing Gerard’s sent him. It was really beautiful. A new direction for Gee, Mikey wondered.

James scoffed. "He’s still in Colombia? Are you kidding me? How’s he gonna do my cover from down there?"

Mikey pursed his lips.

“Okay, okay,” James said, reading exactly as much into Mikey’s silence as Mikey’d intended. He took a deep breath. “Refilling the artists’ well and all that. I get it, I get you, just - you can't let all the little Moonies down, can you Mikey?” James said, and made the most sickening puppy eyes Mikey had ever seen. “They’re counting on you to finish the series. Unite Edgar and Ella for all eternity and you’re done, kid. Done and dusted."

Mikey sighed.

“One last book, James. And that’s it.”

“One last book.”

 _Yeah_ , Mikey sighed, _okay_. He could do one more. He owed it to the fans who’d stuck with him, and he definitely owed it to his mom; part of him even owed it to Edgar and Ella. Their forbidden, often thwarted, verging on insane love had paid for his mom’s house. The least he could do was write them a flashy wedding and filthy honeymoon. What kind of romance didn’t have a happy ending?

Mikey nodded.

"That's my boy!" James cried, spinning around in his chair. "You give me words, Gerard does the art and - hey presto - New York Times Best seller list, here we come!"

Mikey adjusted his glasses and glanced at the package. Why wasn’t there a letter? Gee always sent a letter.

“Okay, I'm gonna get out of your hair," James went on. “How are things looking anyway? I'm shitting bricks to know if Edgar can still give Ella what she needs even though he has become more demon than man because of his passion for her."

Mikey looked up. "Seriously?"

"Do not harsh my squee, Michael James. Your books are GOLD."

Mikey pressed his eyes closed and shook his head.

James made an incredibly patronizing 'dawwwwww' sound. “When you’re done,” he said, his voice pure saccharine. “We can talk about that little Gay Space Action Romance thing you were telling me about the other day. Okay?”

Mikey pricked up his ears. “Okay. But - ” Only, James had already hung up.

Mikey shut down Skype and pouted at the screen. It wasn’t a _Gay Space Action Romance, God_. It was serious Science Fiction. The big gay romance was purely incidental.

He took a deep breath and pulled up Word, back to his personal hell and the vampire nightmare therein.

He stared at the screen for a few seconds before opening his secret Twitter account, @SlayerBoy77.

 _Edgar Mullen has no sense of personal style,_ he wrote, and hit send.

He sat back and watched a Twitter-fall of outraged Moonies berating him for a couple of minutes.

Mikey Way smiled.

The sound of the phone ringing in the other room was kind of weird, like he'd forgotten he even had a land line. Mostly people just texted him, or Skyped him these days since he was always at his computer.

Maybe it was James trying to keep him on his toes?

He hit send on _His hair is stupid, too_ \- He owed his buddy Pete a fruit basket for showing him how to use Twitter for stress relief - and leaped up to get it.

He grabbed the handset. “Yes, I am writing, James," he said into it, rubbing his eyes.

"Mikey?" Gerard's voice, frantic and high, came down the line.

"Gee? What’s up, bro?"

"Mikey! Oh my god! You have to do something!” Gerard’s voice was scratchy and Mikey could hear the terror in it. “You have to come down here,” he hissed. “They're going to kill me!"

*

“What?” Mikey juggled his cell phone with one hand as he bundled his luggage off the carousel. “What? Hello?”

 

The airport was packed – over-excited tourists jostled him, small dark women in multicolored skirts brushed past him; a man with a trilby and a handle-bar mustache sneered at him, and _Policia_ carrying machine guns watched the crowds from behind mirrored sunglasses. The air was different too, sharper smelling, denser with humidity, like warm breath on the skin. Coming from the sedate controlled chaos of Newark International, De Presia airport in central Colombia was pure pandemonium.

Mikey almost dropped the phone, but managed to grab it just in time. He pressed it to his ear. "Hello?" The connection was pretty spacey. A voice crackled and warped, “Where the hell are you, Kid? It’s like your computer is turned off or something.”

Fuck. Dewees. Mikey immediately regretted getting an international plan on his phone.

“Um, well, I’m in Bogota. Outside... Bogota. A lot... outside. I’m not actually in Bogota anymore. I’m in - I’m going to Cartagena.”

“Sorry, what now?”

“I’m in Colombia!” Mikey said, raising his voice over the crackle of a poor connection. He patted his messenger bag and felt the bulge in the side pocket.

“No. No, no, no, no."

Mikey could really relate to his disbelief. He couldn't believe he was in mother fucking Colombia either.

“I have to go, bus is leaving,” Mikey muttered into the phone, clicking it closed over the sound of James sputtering and complaining as he navigated the crowd and edged out through the airport doors.

There he found a row of busses and cabs and private cars with hundreds of people trying to cram onto them and almost as many more people vying for Mikey’s attention.

He tried not to make eye contact with any of them. Maybe this was like New York, after all.

He pushed past a group of tourists and a boy selling tea from an urn. He had to get to Cartagena, for the love of God, and kill his only sibling.

This was just so not like Gerard. Well, the hysterical phone calls were a bit like Gerard, only they usually involved broken hearts or crises of artistic faith. But mysterious packages, desperate pleas for rescue in strange exotic places? No. Gerard taught art to underprivileged kids and held weird exhibitions in church halls, for crying out loud.

Except for that terrifying month in his senior year in High School when Gerard decided he was going to be a masked vigilante and ended up nearly garrotting himself swinging down from the roof of their garage on a rope made from their mom’s pantyhose and couple of bungee ties, Gerard had never really been in peril.

But then the call.

“Bring the parcel to _Cartagena_ The- the Hotel De la Muerte.“ Gerard had said. “ _Please_ Mikey. I’m not fucking around!”

Then there had been a silence, and then what sounded like a scuffle and a high pitched squeal that made Mikey’s blood run cold. Gerard had come back on, “Jesus, Mikey, _please_.”

And then the line had gone dead.

Mikey had been on a plane three hours later. He’d thought about calling the police, but then some of the things Gerard had told him had seemed so outlandish. What if it was just Gee, being Gee? He’d gone anyway because, fuck’s sake. It was Gee. Of course he was going.

And now, here Mikey was, in Colombia.

“Fucking six hour layover in Houston,” Mikey muttered to himself as he dragged his suitcase towards a likely looking bus.

The wheel of the case snagged in between some broken paving. Mikey looked to the sky.

 _They’re going to kill me_ , that’s what Gerard had said.

Mikey would have laughed, would have put it all down to Gerard’s lifelong penchant for amateur dramatics. But something, something in Gerard’s voice had been genuinely scared.

And one thing Gerard never was, was scared. Mikey pressed on.

A hand in the middle of Mikey’s chest brought him up short.

“You are looking for a ride? Where you want to go?”

A lithe looking woman with short dark hair and neatly penciled brows stood in front of him, hands on her hips, eyebrow arched.

“Um... Per vaborrr, donde esta la ... um... Cartagena? Del... dela? bus??” Mikey gave up and pointed at one of the busses with the least chickens in crates strapped to the roof and shrugged. “Cartagena?”

The woman winked.

“I tell you best bus, yes? Cartagena? Yes?”

“Um, yes? I mean, si?” Mikey said, yanking his luggage out of the crack and following the woman.

“This is Cartagena bus,” she said, wrapping her knuckles on a brightly painted vehicle.

Mikey nodded.

She helped him pass his suitcase up to the roof, haggled with the driver on his behalf, and then nodded when he counted out the correct negotiated fare in brightly colored, unfamiliar bills.

“Thanks,” he said to her.

“Take seat! Enjoy ride! Muy facil! ” She said and patted him on the ass as he stepped up onto the bus.

Mikey was altogether too flustered to do anything about it; he really didn’t travel well. Besides, when he turned around, she’d already disappeared into the crowd.

 _Okay_ he thought and climbed aboard. He patted his bag again. He only had to worry about one thing: the package, Gerard’s envelope. “ The, the Hotel Dela Muerte. I-I... you have three days.” He'd said.

“I’m coming, Gee,” Mikey muttered, stepping over suitcases feet as he walked down the aisle of the bus. “I’m coming.”

He wedged himself into a gap on the rear bench seat, sighed with relief, removed a chicken’s butt from his lap and promptly fell asleep.

*

Mikey stood in the middle of the road, sweating. “What do you mean everyone off?” He asked, wiping his face on his already sopping shirt. If he'd thought it was hot on the bus, it was nothing compared to the sticky heat of standing under the high sun, trying to get answers from the distracted driver.

With a sudden lurch and the sound of grinding metal, the bus had stopped in the middle of the road about an hour into the ride. They were half way up a long, winding road that twisted and turned into the jungle-covered mountains. When it was clear the bus would go no further, everyone got out and Mikey followed.

He pulled his phone out of his bag and held it up. Absolutely no coverage. Not so much a half a bar. _Guess that rules out trolling the Moonies on Twitter from here,_ he thought. The _No service_ letters on the screen blinked like they were mocking him.

The other passengers, who all seemed far less surprised or concerned than Mikey at this turn of events, milled around him. He stood stock still in the middle of the road, clutching his messenger bag and trying to surmise the situation. God, he didn’t have time for this. Three days, and he had no idea how far away Cartagena still was.

Next to him, the bus tilted at an alarming angle, and every time the guy threw a piece of luggage down from the roof it seemed to tilt even further. Mikey didn’t know all that much about cars and whatnot, but even he could see the axel was a goner. It lay in two pieces under the bus, the wheels angled out and useless.

“So, when’s the next bus?” Mikey asked.

The driver laughed, and said something to one of the men catching luggage from the roof. He laughed even harder.

“Um, then, which way to Cartagena?” Mikey asked, and clutched his bag to his chest even more tightly. The driver’s only reply was to catch Mikey’s suitcase from the roof and plonk it down in the road in front of him. It splashed in the mud, spraying Mikey’s jeans and Adidas.

His hair flopped in his face, lank with sweat and humidity. He was not cut out for this weather. He was not cut out for weather of any kind, let alone this clammy hot breath thing.

The driver shrugged and pointed in the direction of the road uphill and started trudging after his former passengers. Mikey looked at the sky. _Fuck._ He started heading after them.

As he walked past the back of the bus a final passenger stepped out onto the road. “There will be a bus along in a little while,” he said, smiling brightly at Mikey. “We should just wait.”

It was the guy with the handlebar mustache, the one Mikey had seen sneering in the airport. He was an American, Mikey could hear as much in his accent, but he’d obviously been here for a while; he was so relaxed and confident stuck there in the middle of the Jungle, he didn’t come off as a tourist. The guy lit a cigarette and walked a few paces up the road, looking into the jungle and stretching his shoulders.

“But everyone is leaving,” Mikey said, watching the passengers disappear around a bend in the steep road.

“Oh, yeah, well, most of them only live in the village in the valley. They’ll get there and send the replacement for us.” He shrugged.

Mikey watched the others on the road. He looked back at Mustache Guy who was leaning in the shade of the bus. He turned and smiled at Mikey again.

Seemed kind of sensible not to hike up a fucking mountain in this heat, not if a bus was coming anyway. Mikey nodded and sat heavily on his suitcase.

Mustache Guy smiled wider. “I’m Eric Nally,” he said, “And you are?”

Mikey fidgeted. “Um, Mikey,” he said after a second. He didn’t really want to tell the guy his name. It usually ended badly, with Mikey signing old till receipts or people’s foreheads. But Nally didn’t press; he just kept smiling at him. Mikey reminded himself not to be such a crappy tourist, freaking out every time someone was friendly.

But as the voices of the other passengers faded up the road, he was left only with the sounds of the jungle - like some kind of movie - alive with a strange bird call: something that sounded, unnervingly, like monkeys screaming, and the chattering of millions and trillions of bugs. And Eric Nally’s hairy grin. It was hard not to be un-nerved.

Mikey took a few moments to imagine the variety and number of ways he was going to kick his brother's ass when he found him, and when that didn’t seem to make a replacement bus come any faster he took a deep breath and tried to resign himself to a long, long wait. Someone had to come along eventually, right? Nally certainly seemed to think so. Nally, who was just waiting over there… watching Mikey. _Right_.

Mikey stood up and pointed in the direction the other passengers went. “You know what, I think I’m gonna...”

"I think you’re going to give me the map, Mr. Way.”

Or... not.

Mikey stopped himself from falling backwards over the suitcase at the sight of Nally holding a gun, an actual _gun_ , with a sharp, self-satisfied smirk twisting his face.

"Um," said Mikey, casting about wildly for he didn't know what.

"Give me the map, Mr. Way."

"The, ah, what?" _Oh, fucking fuck._ He knew Mikey's name and he knew about Gerard’s parcel.

Nally sneered. "Don't be a fool. Just give me the map and you can go on your way,” he continued, advancing slowly on Mikey and raising the gun a little as he did.

 _Okay._ Mikey tried to think. He looked up the road; the other passengers were long gone. He looked into the dense jungle; monkeys and macaws screeched back. Where the fuck was Manimal when you needed him?

"I don't know what you’re talking about,” Mikey said slowly, clenching his fingers around the strap of the satchel.

The man’s eyes shifted to where Mikey was gripping the strap. “Yes, yes, you do, Mr. Way. Don’t be an idiot. Give it. To me.”

Mikey edged slowly towards the back end of the bus. He had every intention of diving into the under growth and hoping for the best, screeching monkey death be damned.

But the sound of a bullet ricocheting off the bus above Mikey's head, far louder than he'd ever imagined gunshots could be, stopped him in his tracks.

"Fuck, dude!” Mikey pulled his neck in. “Do not fire a gun at me!”

"I thought you were supposed to be the smart one, Mr. Way," Nally said. "Give me the map your God-forsaken brother sent you, or next time, my aim will be a little...” He waggled his eyebrows. “Lower."

Nally pointed the gun at Mikey's face.

Mikey slowly raised his hands in the air. _Oh Gerard_ , he thought, _what the hell have you done?_

"You and your brother, so pathetic,” Nally sneered advancing on him. “You think you can come down here and take anything you want. _El Corazon_ belongs to me. You understand? ME..."

But he didn't get to finish his dastardly monologue, because one of the screaming monkeys came screaming out of the jungle, swinging on an vine and bowled Nally on his ass, sending his trilby hat flying along with the gun.

Nally's head connected with the side of the bus with a sickening thunk, and then the screaming monkey leaped to its feet and asked Mikey if he was okay.

Only it wasn't a monkey, it was a short tattooed guy in khakis and a Misfits tee shirt. And it wasn't a vine he’d swung in on; it was a bullwhip, an Indiana Jones bullwhip, which the guy was shaking loose from the overhanging branch, coiling up and hanging from his belt. His… Indiana Jones belt.

Mikey raised his eyebrows.

The guy looked at Mikey with an amused smirk. He leaned down and picked up the trilby and set it on his own head. Turning to the bus, he checked his new look out in the windscreen. "Huh," he said, apparently pleased with the addition to his outfit.

He turned back to Mikey and raised his eyebrows. "Whadda ya think?" He said with a wink.

Mikey stared. He'd been lost for words before in his life; you didn't grow up with Gerard Way without being stunned into silence on occasion, but this? This was something else.

"No really," Indiana said, cocking an eyebrow. "Saving your life was totally my pleasure. Your effusive and heartfelt thanks are not required." He shook his head and then, apparently done with Mikey, he moved on to Nally.

'Indiana' squatted over the guy and checked his pulse. He then started rifling through the guy's pockets, tucking everything he found into his beat up backpack.

"Camels?! Awesome!" he said, liberating a box of smokes and some matches from Nally’s inner pocket. He put one in his mouth.

"Um," said Mikey again. Mikey Way’s Word of the Day, apparently, was ‘um’.

Indiana glanced over his shoulder at Mikey. "Yeah, I know. They'll kill me, but the nearest Circle K is about 3000 miles away. I've been jonesing for months," he said, and then giggled.

Mikey watched as the guy dug around in Nally’s back pockets coming up with a box of matches. "Is - is he dead?" Mikey asked, afraid of the answer.

Indiana lit his smoke, shook out the match and walked back to Mikey slowly. He nodded towards Nally. "Nah, just out cold."

He frowned at Mikey's wide staring eyes. "Faceplant over there hit you on the head or something?" Indiana asked, eyes scanning Mikey’s hairline.

Mikey shook his head. "He didn’t touch me. I don't know who that guy is or what the fuck he wants."

Indiana raised his eyebrows and smirked, looking Mikey up and down.

"Sure," he said, with a knowing wink. “Shall we make an educated guess?”

Mikey felt his face heat up. "Actually," he countered. "I’m trying to find my brother."

"Jesus." The dude cut Mikey off and sauntered over to where Nally's gun had landed, pocketing that too. "There are two of you? That I gotta see."

The guy walked to the rear of the bus and back.

"How long ago did the driver leave?" He asked over his shoulder as he stepped gingerly into the bus and looked around for something.

Mikey shrugged. "Five minutes."

The guy cursed and squinted, looking up the hillside where the Mikey's bus-mates had gone. "Well that's a half day's hike wasted."

"Look," Mikey tried to scrabble back a modicum of control from the... cute, little guy who’d just swung in on a frikken bullwhip, kicked a guy's ass and blown smoke in Mikey’s face.

Batman and Indiana Jones had been Mikey’s go-to jerk off material as a young geek sliding around on the Kinsey scale. He had no defenses and a hell of a frame of reference for that kind of shit.

But still, Gerard! Guns! Maps! _God._

"I need to get to Cartagena," Mikey barked. "Do you know when the next bus is coming?"

"Dude, this isn’t downtown Manhattan," Indiana said, setting his hat at what would commonly be called a rakish angle. Mikey blinked. _Oh…wow,_ he thought stupidly as the guy looked up at him from under the brim.

"There won't be another bus until someone gets up here and fixes this one." Indiana kicked a tire. "Which means there won’t _be_ another bus."

Mikey looked along the road. Jesus, this had to be some kind of joke. “He said there’d be another bus,” Mikey said, and he absolutely did not bite his lip.

Indiana snorted. "Who? The nice man with the gun?”

Mikey felt his face heat up again. Okay, so Indiana McAsshole was a total jackass, but Mikey had to hold his tongue. So far, he was the only person who could potentially help Mikey. Plus, he had what looked like a scorpion tattooed on his neck. Mikey figured that was Jungle for ‘do not fuck with me.’

Mikey had to get to Gerard. If goons like Nally were on to him, then Mikey had to get there. He had to get there fast.

"Can you, I dunno, like.” His voice broke off, and he swallowed. "Guide me? Or whatever it is you do?" Mikey cringed inwardly.

“Nope.”

“Right,” Mikey said, and eyed the guy. “Because you’re in no way set up for jungle travel. Where did you come from anyway?”

The dude stopped, put his hands on his hips and gave Mikey an appraising look.

“Look, I can see you’re in a jam, so, I’ll be kind. I mean, what was the point of me saving your ass, if I’m just going to leave you here in the middle of the Amazon to,” he laughed and looked at Mikey’s shoes, “fend for yourself.” He pointed at the prone form of Nally. “Clearly you’re a master of the art of self defense.”

“Yes, God, okay,” Mikey grit out. “Thank you for saving my ass. Can you get me to a phone at least?” He waved his useless cell phone at the guy and tried really, really hard not to roll his eyes. He honestly did, but _come on._

Indiana pursed his lips. "My minimum price for taking a stranded dude to a telephone is $400," he said.

Fumbling through his messenger bag Mikey came up with, "Um... $75 dollars and packet of Twizzlers?”

Indiana set his hat back a little on his head. "You got yourself a deal. Ah?"

"Mikey Way," Mikey said.

"You got yourself a deal, Mikeyway," he said and he held out his hand. Mikey shook it. "The name is Iero."

 _Indiana Iero_ , Mikey thought.

“Frank Iero,” the guy said. “What the hell are you doing out here anyway?”

Mikey sighed. “I’m supposed to meet my brother. I dunno. That guy...” Mikey pointed a thumb at Nally, still out cold. “I think that guy knows him. I dunno.”

“You in some kind of trouble?” Frank asked.

Mikey gave Frank a shrewd look.

“Well, I’m guessing since you just had a mother fucking gun pulled on you by a guy with a handle bar mustache, the answer is yes.”

Mikey rolled his eyes. “Okay then, yes.” He took a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on. But I need to find my brother.”

Did someone think the map in Gerard’s parcel was real, and not one of his more obscure art projects? Maybe it was real, real enough to try shooting Mikey for anyway. He didn’t know if he should trust Frank, but the guy had just saved his life, and anyway, Mikey would probably die out here in the jungle without his help. He looked at Frank. He was little, and cute. But Mikey wasn’t gonna let little cuteness decide if he should trust someone. Frank seemed... Well, he seemed like kind of a dick. And it was that that made Mikey relax. Nally had seemed charming at first and look how that turned out.

Frank nodded and shrugged.

“Okay, so, how much for all the way to Cartagena?” Mikey clutched his messenger bag closer. The parcel made a rustling sound. Mikey reached in and pushed it deeper into his bag.

Frank stubbed out his butt, he looked Mikey up and down. "You can barely afford a trip to a phone; you can’t afford a trip to the coast, dude."

Mikey swallowed and moved close to Frank. He smelled, Mikey realized, of fresh sweat and stale smoke and loamy earth. A good smell. A tough smell. The kind Mikey was always trying to describe on the men in his novels.

“Okay, forget the phone and the $400,” Mikey said, “You get me to Cartagena? I’ll pay you $4000.”

Frank narrowed his eyes. “And where’s this 4k coming from? Wait, are you a drug mule? Because you’re supposed to be taking it _out_ of the country, not—”

 _Ugh_ “My bro,” Mikey said, cutting him off. “He’s pretty rich."

Frank leaned back and narrowed his eyes at Mikey. “How rich?”

“ _Rich_ ,” said Mikey. He looked Frank up and down. “Richer than you can imagine anyway.”

“I dunno, dude.” Frank grinned back, seemingly unintimidated by Mikey’s assessment. “I can imagine quite a lot.”

Mikey shrugged. “He’s fucking loaded. Like, why else would someone be trying to– to kidnap me or whatever?”

Frank frowned. His eyes searched the jungle, then the prone form of Nally. He turned to Mikey.

"Okay, if we're gonna do this you will do exactly as I say when I say it. No back chat, no questions, no whining. Got it?"

Mikey's knees went weak. Must have been the heat. "Yeah," he replied.

"Okay," Frank said. "Okay, let's blow this popsicle stand."

And he pulled an actual machete from his God damned Indiana Jones belt and hacked his way into the dense jungle, leaving Mikey to drag his suitcase in after him.

*

Mikey was not equipped for Jungle Life.

"I am not coping at all right now,” he said as he hefted his suitcase over yet another log and retrieved his once pristine Adidas sneaker from yet another soggy, disgustingly warm jungle bog.

Frank glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, shit,” he said, letting the foliage live a little longer and turning back to Mikey. He took his suitcase from him. “I’m sorry. I should help you with that.”

“Thank fuck,” Mikey said, letting his shoulders droop.

Frank had been completely silent as they hacked their way through the jungle - fucking JUNGLE - while Mikey had been on something of an emotional roller coaster. First of all, brother in mortal peril, then Mikey in mortal fucking peril. And now guy with a fucking machete, an insanely hot guy with a machete the jungle, leading him to… who knew what.

Also, bugs, slime, leaf mold and the fucking heat. God, Mikey could feel just how slimy was. And as for his hair? Forget about it. Also, his glasses kept fogging up every five seconds. He had a moment of panic thinking about the state of his Space Invaders tee shirt - it was _vintage_ \- but what was done was done. He flicked a couple of leaves off his shoulder.

Frank hefted and bag and frowned. “What’s in here, Mikeyway?"

“Oh, clothes, shoes, hair straighteners, um, a copy of Rolling Stone, the usual," he shrugged.

Frank smiled. “Rolling Stone?”

Mikey felt his face heat up. The last thing he needed was Frank – who clearly had no idea who Mikey was - seeing _the_ interview. Why did he bring it with him? That’s what comes from packing in a panic. “Yeah, it’s, you know, really out of date... Hey!”

Frank was on his knees tearing open the suitcase. He rifled through Mikey’s gear, pulled out the Rolling Stone, folded it and tucked it into his back pocket. Then he zipped up the suitcase, stood up and hurled it out into the densely covered ravine they had spent the last hour hacking out of.

“You did not just do that,” said Mikey, as he watched his possessions fly out into the air and be swallowed by the lower canopy of green.

“You don’t need hair irons in the mother fucking jungle, Mikeyway,” Frank said and turned back to hack the path to God alone knew where.

Mikey contemplated throwing himself in after his luggage, or just sitting on that log over there and waiting to die. But then he thought of Gerard and a spike of fear jabbed at his guts.

He followed after Frank.

“Why, why are you here,” Mikey panted, pushing through the clinging knee high greenery. He tore a snagging vine off his calf. “I don’t even know how you stand it,” he said after the thirteenth branch snapped back and smacked him in the face. “It’s fucking horrible. Forget majesty of nature. Nature is about as majestic as a flock of rabid bats.”

Mikey really fucking wished he hadn’t just thought about rabid bats.

"You’ll get used to it,” said Frank, glancing back over his shoulder. “I was scared of all sorts of shit, I mean, pretty much everything, before I came down here. But,” he shrugged and hacked a whole tree, like, in half. “You get used to it.”

He started to lead them up hill.

“Man, spiders, that was my big thing,” he continued. "Now, I could give a shit."

"Spiders?" Mikey pulled his messenger bag closer.

"As big as your face."

Mikey swallowed. A second later the rain bucketed down like tiny, grimy pebbles.

“Neat,” Mikey said.

Frank stopped and turned back to Mikey. He grinned.

“We gotta get out of this,” said Frank. “And it’ll be dark soon.”

Mikey tugged a nearby banana leaf over his head. “Can we like... Just stop for one hot minute? I know it’s raining, but fuck.” His feet ached, he couldn’t see, he had no spare clothes, he was sweaty, and smelly and sore. Things had bitten him; he could feel the itching just starting on his ankles. And now, now, it was raining on Mikey. He’d had enough. “How far is Cartagena?” he demanded.

Frank threw his hands up in the air. “I dunno, thirty, maybe forty clicks East.”

“Okay, Tour of Duty, can you tell me how far that is in like, civilian speak?”

Frank opened his mouth to reply, but burst out laughing instead. He reached out and pulled a foot long _thing_ with a million legs from Mikey’s banana leaf.

Mikey shoved the leaf away from him and danced back from Frank. “Yargh!”

“Yeah, you might wanna watch out for...”

But before Frank could tell him what he might want to watch out for Frank disappeared. And then Mikey felt the ground under his feet give way too. He was falling, no _sliding_ , fast, right down the side of hill on a muddy luge to certain doom.

He flailed his arms, trying to grab anything he could as he rocketed downwards but there was no way. He had a second to think _Sorry, Gerard_ , before he was sailing, arms windmilling, into the air and landing in a pool of stinking mud and Frank’s lap, face first.

“Really, I’m flattered,” said Frank from somewhere above him. “But it seems a little forward for a first date.”

Mikey scrambled away, panting and desperately scraping the mud and mountain crap off his face. _Oh, God... leeches_ , he thought, _jungle parasites, bugs. Indiana Iero’s COCK._

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. Nothing was broken, his glasses were still on his face and he still had his bag. Frank clambered out of the pool although, unlike Mikey, he’d somehow managed to make it down the luge looking only marginally the worse for wear.

“Fuck yeah!" He crowed over to Mikey. “What a rush huh?!”

Mikey hauled himself out of the pool, completely ignoring Frank’s offer of a hand up.

He tried to wipe the mud off his knees, but there was just more mud under the mud.

“Come on, City Boy. You can’t tell me that wasn’t a blast,” Frank said, scooping a little jungle goop out of Mikey’s hair. “We survived.”

Mikey stood for a minute still pointlessly brushing at his clothes. He didn’t want Frank to see the small smile creeping onto his face. It had been kind of a rush, right after the bit where it was absofuckinglutely terrifying, and hideously mortifying at the end there.

“Also, seems like it was a pretty good move,” Frank continued, his enthusiasm for this shit totally unabated by the surrounding filth. Mikey looked up to see him pointing into the jungle.

At an airplane.

*

The plane had a whole tree growing out of it and was almost smothered in vines, but Mikey could see the fuselage pretty solid in most places, and inside, _God, yes_ it was dry.

“That is some motherfucking <i>Lost</i> shit, right there,” Frank said, hacking the creepers away from the door and kicking it the rest of the way off its hinges.

Mikey stood behind him and let him stick his head in first. It was getting pretty dark outside, and the rain was still coming down in fat, warm splodges.

He bent down and picked something up from just inside the door. Fishing a torch out of his backpack, he flicked it on and pointed it at the slowly drenching paper. “Look at this.” Frank held up an old, yellowed and mildewed newspaper. “‘1983’, they’ve been missing a long time.” Chucking the paper aside Frank stepped inside. “Locke?!” He hollered. “Sawyer? You guys in here?”

“I think you should be calling for Charlie,” Mikey said. Frank looked back at him and Mikey pointed at bulging cargo straps, still intact just inside the door.

“Well,” said Frank, slashing through the nearest strap and pulling out what looking like a 2kg brick of weed. “I guess that explains why they crashed,” he said and made a truly hilarious toking face and waggling his neatly arched eyebrows.

*

If Mikey could have had his way they wouldn’t have stopped. But it was getting too dark to see out there – it wasn’t like there were street lights in the jungle, right? - and now that he was inside, he was glad they wouldn’t be sleeping rough, well, rougher outside.

Actually, plastic-covered weed bricks made a surprisingly comfortable bed after slogging through the jungle for a day, Mikey mused as he reclined in a little nest of pot next to the fire Frank had started beneath one of the bigger holes in the roof.

Frank ripped open a brick, grabbed a handful and dumped it on the fire. “To help us sleep,” he said when Mikey raised an eyebrow at him. Mikey didn’t really care, just as long as he was dry.

He cared a little more an hour or so later when he was so stoned he couldn’t remember his middle name.

“So that’s what I was doing there, when the bus arrived. Waiting for my mail,” Frank giggled. “But the fucking driver must have taken it with him, so I can kiss that good bye. Asshole,” said Frank, grabbing another couple of handfuls of weed and throwing them on the embers.

“Oh my god, dude,” Mikey said – his voice a deep, dark monotone. “Please, no more.”

“What’s the matter?” Frank said, and it sound to Mikey like it was one word, but that was probably just a reflection of how epically stoned his ears were. “Can’t handle your buzz?”

Mikey frowned. He could handle it; he just hadn’t, for ages. He was too busy for buzzes. He had novels to write so he could divest teenage girls and their mamas of their pennies... or something...

He started to cough and Frank laughed. “’S what I thought,” Frank shook his head. “All you get up in the big city is that weak assed hydroponic crap some college kid’s grown in the back of his closet. This shit,” he said, thumping the weed bricks, “is the real deal. Grown in the wild, as God intended." He took a deep breath. “Fuckin’ A.”

“Give me a break,” Mikey managed. “It’s not like you were born here and grew it yourself. I know an, an East Coast fucking accent when I hear one. Where did you grow up? In the middle of the fucking pine barrens?”

Frank grinned. “Concrete jungle’s still a jungle, wise ass. Trenton, the Jerz.”

Mikey pushed himself up. “Me and Gee, we’re from Belllyfull... Belleville. Yeah.” He slumped back down again.

“No shit?”

“None.”

Frank nodded and smiled. “See, I knew I liked you. How’s the old town doing?”

Mikey shook his head. “No idea, haven’t left Manhattan in five years. Well, until yesterday,” he said.

Frank frowned. “Dude. If I lived that close to Lodi I’d be back every weekend.”

Mikey tried and failed to sit up again. He just let himself drift. “What the hell _are_ you doing down here, man?”

Frank looked away. “Adventuring,” he said, as if that were obvious. “Seeing the world. Making my fortune. Saving beautiful - what are you, an accountant? Saving beautiful accountants in distress. You know. The usual.”

“You think I’m a,” Mikey said, and then made a _pfft_ sound and looked away. He knew there was something else in Frank’s statement that he should be paying closer attention to, but right now he was just concentrating on not passing out.

“I happen to be a bestselling author,” Mikey said, somewhat morosely.

“You don’t say,” Frank said, and he reached past Mikey to grab the magazine where it was lying next to Frank’s Indiana Jones back pack.

Mikey immediately regretted speaking. God, his interview was in that thing.

Frank lay back on his weed chez lounge and started flicking through the magazine.

“Um...” Mikey said, and contemplated making a grab for the mag before Frank found the article.

Too late. “Holy,” Frank squeaked and sat up straight. Mikey cringed at Frank’s manic grin. “‘Way, whose hazel eyes and smooth looks - ’,” Frank looked up at Mikey, “That’s you. This is...Wow...”

Mikey just shook his head and hid his face in his hands.

“ _Way, who is so cute when he’s blushing_ ,” Frank mocked and went back to reading. “ _Has tapped into a vein – if you’ll excuse the pun – of teen angst and discontent with the Moonlight series...’_ Holy shit,” said Frank. “You like Bruce Willis? I love Bruce Willis!”

Mikey looked up, utterly bewildered. “What?”

“Moonlighting, right? The show? From the 80s? Man, that show rocked. Bruce Willis is the motherfucking king.”

Mikey gave Frank a blank look.

Frank’s face fell.

“Dude, I was like, three when that show was on,” Mikey said. “How were you even born?”

Frank blinked. “Oh, well, you know, re-runs and stuff? So, you’re not writing a novelization of Moonlighting?”

Mikey shook his head slowly.

Frank looked at him expectantly and waved his hand for him to continue.

Mikey took a deep breath. “It’s a, a, romanceaboutagirlandhervampirelovershemeetsathighschool.”

Frank shook his head. “I must be stoned out of my gourd," he said. "Because I could have sworn you just said a romance about a girl _and a vampire_ at _high school_.”

Mikey looked at the fire really hard.

“Oh, oh please - _please_ ,” Frank crowed. “I may never stop laughing.”

Five minutes later it was possibly true; Frank might never stop laughing.

“Everyone,” Mikey said, lids at half-mast, “is a critic.”

And then Frank laughed so hard he actually did fall all the way back off the pile into the fuselage.

Mikey would have leaped up to help him, but he was too stoned and too pissed.

“Asshole,” muttered Mikey, pushing his glasses up his nose.

After a minute Frank climbed back into the nest. He hunkered down, snickering to himself from time to time as he continued to read.

“Dude,” he said, periodically. “ _Dude._ ”

*

Mikey might have slept, he wasn’t sure, but he came-to pretty blearily to see Frank standing and shucking his shirt.

His skin glistened in the firelight and Mikey had a few seconds to marvel at all the ink spreading out over his chest and belly before Frank pulled another shirt from his backpack and pulled it on. He used the old one to wipe his face as best he could and then tucked it into his bag.

“You awake?” he whispered, hunkering down again over his bag.

Mikey made a noncommittal noise, and Frank pivoted to look at him, cocking his head a bit. Mikey drew the inside of his cheek in between his teeth. It seemed stupid to pretend he’d been sleeping, but now Frank was staring at him like he knew Mikey’d watched while he changed.

Mikey’s face grew hot and he swallowed, suddenly wide-awake.

Frank scratched his jaw, like he was trying to figure something out, and then shuffled over to Mikey. “Hey, hey…” he said, nudging Mikey with his toe. “I’m sorry about giving you shit. You know, about your books.”

Mikey shrugged and pulled his shirt collar up a little. It was still warm, but there was a chilly little breeze coming from somewhere.

“Seriously,” Frank insisted.

Mikey shrugged. “They’re not. That’s not what I really want to write. I mean. They pay the bills,” Mikey said, aiming for nonchalance and hitting ‘surly teen tantrum’.

Frank raised his eyebrows. “You got something you’d rather be writing? Why the fuck aren’t you?”

Mikey sighed. “I owe the publisher,” Mikey said. “I owe the kids. I owe my folks.”

Frank nodded. “You know that’s total bullshit, right?”

Mikey looked at him.

“You gotta, you gotta live every day as if it was your last. Every day,” he said, poking a finger at Mikey with vehemence.

“Okay, Tarzan,” Mikey said.

Frank frowned.

Mikey rolled his eyes. “I mean, I guess that would be the case for you, living in the fucking jungle where, hello, every day could actually be your last. But I have responsibilities, you know?”

“Fuck you, 'responsibilities'," Frank said. "I got 'em. But I've got dreams too. And I’m not fucking waiting round for someone else to make them come true. That’s why _I_ came down here.”

He pulled something out of his pocket and held it out to Mikey.

Mikey pushed himself up. The fire had died down although the plane was still pretty smoky. His head was a little clearer but he was still as high as a goddamned kite.

He unfolded the bit of paper. It was a clipping from a magazine – an advert with a picture of a record store: _Rick’s Record Ranch._

Mikey blinked. “You want to buy some records?”

Frank gave him a look. “No, dickhead, I want to _own_ Rick’s one day. I want a store like that, for, you know, music and shit. Books, comics, coffee - that kind of place. “

Mikey sat up a bit further. “Comics? That would be awesome. I’d – I mean, I’d love to hang out in a place like that.”

“I know right,” Frank breathed.

Mikey didn’t know why they were whispering, but there was something kind of comforting, and comfortable about it.

“But you’re not doing that; you’re here, playing Indiana Jones and rescuing me.”

Frank shrugged. “Might as well have an adventure or two, while I try to figure the rest out.”

Mikey nodded and gazed into the fire. He made it sound so reasonable.

“So,” Frank said after a second. Poking the fire with a stick. “You, ah, you got anyone waiting for you? Back home?”

Mikey snorted.

Frank edged away a little, and Mikey regretted it immediately.

"No," Mikey said quietly. "Unless you count a disgruntled Pepto-Bismol-addicted editor and thirty thousand lovelorn teenagers,” he muttered under his breath.

"Huh," Frank mumbled. "'S funny coz, you don’t look like the type."

"Don’t look like what type?"

"You know," Frank said, and he shoved the stick into the fire a little too far ending up with a charred twig. "The type who’d be single, or whatever."

Mikey blinked. "Are you calling me needy?"

Frank frowned. "I don't know," he said, poking at the fire with his booted foot instead. He shook his head as if to clear it. "Am I?"

Mikey frowned. He wasn't needy. He didn’t _need_ anyone. Back home he could go whole days without seeing a single person and not even, like, care. At all. If he needed people he could, like, Skype and shit. He wasn’t _needy_. He scowled.

"Hey, man," Frank said. His eyes were huge in the flickering firelight. "I'm just dicking around. Don't pay attention to stoner talk, dude. You're - I'm sure you're fine and all. You just seem like the kind of guy who'd have the people, all the people, lined up. Or, I dunno. Okay, I'll shut the fuck up now."

"Dude, if I wasn't so wasted," Mikey said, lifting his arm slowly and trying to make a fist. He couldn’t. _God,_ he was way more stoned than he'd realized.

Frank snorted and shook his head again. “Always with the violence, Mikeyway. Why so angry?”

Mikey rolled his head on his neck and gazed up at the ceiling. "Well, what about you?" he said, dropping his chin to his chest again. "Living out here in the wilderness all alone. Who all's waiting for you? Bongo the Bonobo?”

Frank giggled. “What the fuck? Bongo the Bonobo… Holy shit, sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon." Frank went quiet. "Man, I miss Saturday morning cartoons.”

“Me too,” said Mikey. They both sighed. Mikey looked up at Frank. They snickered together and Frank leaned over and covered Mikey's grinning face with his hand. Mikey pushed him away.

Frank's hand was warm and surprisingly soft for someone who went around swinging from bullwhips and wielding machetes. His fingers trailed along Mikey's cheek. The laugh died in Mikey's throat. He swallowed, but suddenly his mouth was pretty dry.

Frank's eyes, Mikey noticed, flicked down to his lips. He shuffled a little closer. "You ever get lonely, Mikey?"

Mikey leaned in a little. "I -"

Mikey didn't know what to say. He swallowed and looked away, pulling back from the fire a little.

Frank sighed. "Yeah, me neither," he said, looking away and pushing himself back onto his pile of weed.

Mikey blinked. “Um.”

"We've got a total bitch of a hike ahead of us,” said Frank, rolling onto his side. “You should, you know, get some sleep and whatnot."

Mikey's skin was still tingling, but he didn't say anything, didn't do what his body was screaming at him to do, and reach out for... what?

He rolled over and pulled his messenger bag under his head, shut his eyes and tried to sleep.

*

The next time he woke, Mikey knew he’d been asleep, because his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth and his eyes felt like gritty pissholes.

He could actually smell himself, sweaty and rank, over the raw green smell of the burnt-out fire and the soggy weed. It was still hot, the chilly breeze of last night long since burnt off by the equatorial sun.

It took him a couple of seconds to get up the courage to fully open his eyes. His head was throbbing and all he wanted was to go back to sleep, or drown himself in a glass of Perrier. Either would be fine.

He looked around the cabin of the plane.

Frank’s machete was gone. So was his bullwhip, and his backpack.

So was Frank.

Mikey’s heart pounded in his chest. “Oh fuck,” he said, sitting bolt upright.

A hand clamped down over his mouth from behind and someone grabbed his arm.

Mikey struggled, tried to call out, but whoever had a hold of him was way too strong.

“Shhhhh, shhhhh, Mikeyway. It’s me. Just...” Frank’s voice and breath were against his ear.

Thank. Fuck.

Mikey wriggled out of Frank’s grip and turned on him.

“What the…?”

Frank’s hand shot out and clamped over Mikey’s mouth again.

He pressed a finger to his lips and then pointed at his ear.

Mikey listened. Outside the plane there were men talking, high and fast, in Spanish.

Mikey followed Frank as he scrambled down the plane to one of the rear windows. Frank teased a few of the vines blocking the open hole in the fuselage aside with the tip of a finger.

He pointed two fingers to his eyes, then at the gap in the greenery and then held up three fingers and shook them.

Mikey looked at all the greenery and thought about the _thing_ Frank had pulled almost out of his hair yesterday. He shook his head.

Frank closed his eyes slowly, took a deep breath and made the gesture again, emphatic and fast.

Mikey pushed his glasses up his nose and shrugged. _No._

Frank rolled his eyes, reached out, grabbed Mikey's head like a melon and turned him towards the gap before giving him a push.

Mikey knocked Frank's hands away. Frank pinged the back of Mikey’s head, which resulted in a few seconds of silent yet fervent slap fighting, only stopped by the sound - sudden and chilling - of a twig breaking, as if it had just been stepped on, just outside the vine curtain.

Frank grabbed Mikey's hand and held his finger to his lips again, eyes wide.

He pointed at the gap again and this time Mikey relented, leaning forward, and peering between the leaves. He could see two men, one with some kind of weapon... Oh, yeah, that was definitely an Uzi. And here his mom had always said three years playing Call of Duty would never amount to anything. _pfft_.

The other guy had some other kind of, well, it looked a lot like a fucking sword, and he was hacking into the undergrowth with it and thrusting into the dense bushes, before kicking them out of the way. They were searching for something, or someone.

Then a third man stepped into view, turning his smooth, smarmy face towards the plane. Mikey fell back against Frank’s chest. He felt Frank’s arm come up to catch him and his other hand come up to smother the shout of fear that Mikey had almost, almost let loose.

Nally.

Mikey turned in Frank’s arms and Frank let him go.

He nodded, eyes wide, and squeezed Mikey’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” he mouthed. Mikey looked down to see Frank was gripping Nally’s gun.

Mikey nodded. It really wasn’t okay. And Mikey, for sure, was not okay.

Frank nodded to the back of the plane and started crawling towards open door. Mikey followed him. Frank pulled Mikey close again, their shoulders pressed tight together.

"The brother of yours must be pretty rich, honey,” he said, his voice the merest breath against Mikey’s ear, as they crawled out of the plane.

But Mikey didn't get to reply, because a thick bunch of vines hanging from the tree next to them above exploded just by his ear.

"Oh fuck!" Frank was shouting, grabbing Mikey by the arm and hauling him into the undergrowth. "Run for it!"

People, _goons_ even, were fucking shooting at him _again_. Mikey took off in the direction Frank pointed, diving into the dense greenery and just going for it.

He heard rapid shots pelting into the trees and bushes around him as he ran. Shattered twigs and bits of leaf flew in his face and the whizzing pop pop pop of bullets flying so close, too close, assaulted his ears. He heard the sharp crack of Frank firing back and then the sound of Frank shouting at him to keep going.

Mikey glanced back over his shoulder. Branches and vines tore at his face and hands. Frank was just behind him.

Mikey reached out and tore a bushy sapling out of his way and flung his arms out wide to grab the nearest tree and stop himself from falling.

A gorge, all but covered by the dense over-hanging canopy, with crashing white rapids about thirty feet below, opened out in front of him. "FUCK!" he shouted, waving his arms for balance as Frank almost ploughed into his back.

"Frank!” A bullet whizzed past Mikey's head and he ducked. He could hear the goons shouting to each other as they crashed through the jungle behind them.

"The fuck," Mikey said, taking deep breaths and keeping his voice low. "The fucking _fuck_ are we gonna do?!"

Frank stared at the ravine, and back at Mikey. “Stay here, stay low.”

He disappeared into the foliage. Mikey panted, scanning the wall of greenery in front of him for the goons.  Moments later Frank leaped out of the trees, a long thick grey- green branch trailing after him.

"You ever hear of the Strangler Fig, Mikeyway?" Frank said, hauling Mikey to his feet. Frank thrust the branch into Mikey's hands. "Hold this," he said, and he tugged a few more feet of the ropey wood out towards them and slung it around Mikey’s waist.

_Oh, hell no._ Mikey breathed hard through his nose and shook his head.

"There's a tribe of South American Indians," Frank continued and shuffled them both up to the edge of the cliff. "They use it to bungee into deep ravines on spirit quests and shit."

Mikey looked at Frank. "No fucking…"

"Hold on tight," Frank said with a grin and pushed Mikey off the edge.

Mikey screamed.

He realized, as he plummeted to what was almost certainly his death, clinging to a fucking _Strangler Vine_ in the mother fucking _Amazon,_ that he had never actually screamed before in his whole life. Screaming wasn't his style. _Pfft_ , _hmmmm_ , _gah_ , _ungh_ ; These were the kind of non verbal communication Mikey preferred. The hysterical wailing coming from him now was not a noise anyone who knew Mikey Way would have associated with him. But he really couldn’t think of anything better to say just at the minute.

He did it again for good measure.

"Waaaaah HOOOO!" Mikey heard Frank holler behind him and Mikey made the drastic mistake of opening his eyes; the entire world was rushing at him.

The vine twisted and Mikey could see Frank, leaping out into the void; a long, ragged length of Strangler Fig wrapped round him like rope. His grin was huge; he was laughing, and he wasn't falling.

And neither was Mikey. He was flying! His vine swung out over the ravine, hanging from the mile-high canopy, which all but covered the river from the sky. And Mikey mother fucking Way was swinging with it.

"Mikey!" Frank called, and Mikey had a few seconds to look behind him and see the far side of the gorge racing up to meet him. "FUCK!" he shouted, and let go of the vine, tumbling over the lip of the cliff to sprawl in the rocky dirt.

A few seconds later Frank landed beside him. And a second after that, a bullet blasted into a tree trunk next to them.

"Go!" Frank yelled, pushing Mikey up and into the cover of the undergrowth. Frank stopped and turned back to the edge. He held the tip of his thumb up to his nose and waggled his fingers. "Na na na naaaa naaaa," he shouted back across the gorge. A hail of bullets answered him and Mikey grabbed his arm and hauled him into the bush with him.

*

Mikey didn’t really know what the hell was going on, but he could not stop smirking. At least, it felt a little like a smirk, kind of smug and happy and stunned. Yeah, he was smirking. Almost a grin or something, anyway.

Because he was _alive_. And it made his cheeks hurt from all the smiling! Because they were alive too.

Alive after swinging on a mother fucking _vine_ , across a goddamned _gorge_ , running from frikken _armed goons_ and _not dying_.

He thought about his little desk in his stuffy study in Manhattan. Then he watched Frank hacking into the bushes, clearing a path for them. Mikey’s smirk got a little bigger.

God, Frank was hot. He was fucking - Frank’s arm swung up and he slammed the blade down again and a gain on a knot of twisted vines - _so_ hot. Mikey took a deep breath and tried to stop staring at Frank's lean arms and the way the muscles in Frank's back rippled every time he lifted the machete.

He readjusted himself in his jeans - he didn't want to chaff - and fished the last of his water out of his bag and took a swig.

His eyes fell on Frank again. He just looked so, so good. His skin was so tan and lush and rich looking, like, like honey. Honey... Mikey smirked wider.

"You called me honey,” Mikey said.

Frank’s chopping arm faltered. He started hacking a little harder.

"No," Frank said, glancing over his shoulder, eyes wide.

"Yes, you did. You called me ‘Honey.’"

"No, I didn’t,” he said again.

"Okay," Mikey said.

"I did not. Call you. Honey." Frank countered. Then more quietly after easing up on the bush he was massacring, “I did not.” He looked left and right and then started hacking them a path up hill.

"Okay,” Mikey said easily, and pushed his way between some heavy vines and Frank where Frank had somehow, gotten himself stuck.

“Why would I call you ‘Honey’?!” Frank whined, pushing into the jungle after him.

“I don’t know,” said Mikey, with a great deal of nonchalance. “Why _would_ you call me ‘Honey’?”

The outraged noises Frank was making behind him made a little bubble of glee rise up in Mikey’s chest. He parted a thick bunch of banana leaves.

“I wasn’t calling you ‘Honey’,” Frank ranted. “It might have fucking sounded like that, but that was not what I was saying. I was probably saying...”

But Mikey didn’t get to hear what Frank was ‘probably saying’. Mikey was far too preoccupied with the guy behind the banana leaves pointing a gun at Mikey’s head.

*

“Fuck,” said Frank, who Mikey figured had just seen the whole face-gun situation. The big, shiny, gun. Right there, about an inch from his forehead.

“You guys make a lot of noise,” the guy - a blond, stony faced behemoth of a man - with the gun said.

“Um,” Mikey replied, sensibly. Because really, ‘Um’ was pretty eloquent for someone with a fucking gun at his forehead.

Frank stepped out from behind Mikey. He reached up and gently pushed the barrel of the gun away from Mikey’s face. “Hi, hey! Okay, let’s just... take this down a notch, huh big guy?” he said.

The Behemoth raised an eyebrow.

Frank raised his hands and took one slow step in front of Mikey.

Mikey felt himself start breathing again. Frank dropped one hand behind his back and seemed to be trying to slap Mikey’s balls.

Mikey frowned down at Frank’s hand. _Oh_ , Mikey realized and took a step back.

The Behemoth laughed, a loud, sudden bark that made Mikey jump. “You guys have _any_ idea where you are?” He asked.

“No,” said Mikey.

“Yes,” said Frank. “Ha Ha. Ignore my friend, he has Jungle Fever,” Frank said, raising his voice. “This is Despuesa. Right?”

The big guy nodded.

_Holy shit_ , Mikey thought. Frank did actually know what the hell he was doing. Mikey was impressed. More impressed.

“Yeah, I was leading Mr. Way here to the nearest phone, isn’t that right Mikey? I said, just over that rise is Despuesa and we’d find a place to call your folks or whatever from there. I mean also, it’s a really nice part of the country, right? And I thought, let’s get a little jungle hiking in too...”

Holding his hand up in front of Mikey, the Behemoth said, “Your name is Mikey Way?”

Mikey nodded.

The guy smiled slowly. His eyes were kind of twinkly. Mikey liked his beard. The guy started chuckling. “No shit?”

Mikey shook his head. _Oh,_ Mikey thought. _Oh dear._

“We’re just looking for a phone, man,” Frank said.

“Well, you found one,” he said, and nodded for them to follow him out of the jungle and onto a dirt road. The road ran down hill to a small collection of white-washed buildings in the distance. "Despuesa," he said.

The guy pointed towards the biggest building at the far end of the town. "There's a phone there,” he said. “Tell ‘em Bob sent you.” He laughed again.

Mikey and Frank said thanks and staggered off down the road.

Mikey looked back over his shoulder and waved at Bob, who was still laughing and pointing up the road. They kept walking.

“We are in deep shit, dude,” Frank said and they both looked back to see Bob still watching after them.

“Hmmm,” said Mikey.

*

Considering it was 100 degrees out, Despuesa was kind of chilly.

As they walked past the white-washed buildings, doors and shutters closed.

Mikey sketched a wave at a little old lady sitting outside her little house. She hurried inside, slamming the door behind her.

“That would be some of the charming local color your travel agent told you about,” Frank said.

At the huge wooden gates of the hacienda, Frank rounded on Mikey. “Listen,” he said desperately, “whatever happens next, will you let me do the talking before you end up with your head in bits? That was our, you know, agreement, remember?”

"Whatever you say," Mikey shrugged. "Honey."

Frank screwed up his eyes, shook a finger at Mikey, turned his back on him and knocked.

A little hatch opened in the door. “¿Que?”

Frank fidgeted a bit and looked back at Mikey, who made the locked up tight gesture against his lips and smiled at him with just his mouth.

“Um, hola?” Frank said. “Estamos buscando un teléfono.”

The long, solid steel barrel of a shotgun poked slowly out of hatch and pressed against Frank’s cheek.

“Okay, well, thank you for your time!” Frank said and started to back up slowly, his hands raised.

“My name is Mikey Way,” Mikey called over Frank’s shoulder. “Bob sent us.”

The gun barrel disappeared.

“Mikey Way? _Mikey Way_ Mikey Way?” said a voice beyond the hatch.

Mikey waved.

Seconds later the door whooshed open.

Standing there, with his arms thrown wide and a huge toothy grin that took up half his face, was the most magnificent head of hair Mikey had ever seen. And Mikey knew from hair.

“Mikey Way!” The head of hair said.

“Si,” Frank blurted, grabbing Mikey’s hand and pulling him forward. “El es escritor realmente grande de América!”

The man threw his arms wide, his face split into that truly massive grin.

And he threw his arms around Mikey’s neck.

“Oh! Ah,” Mikey said, his voice rising a little in panic. The guy wasn’t wearing a shirt. He was really big. “Um, Frank? Frank!?”

“Ponga por favor al autor abajo como el sufre de un maÌ caso de la palmada,” Frank said, his voice going a little tight and forced, as he tried to prise the man’s arms from around Mikey’s shoulders.

“¿Soy invisible de pronto? Escucha la bola de pelo, nosotros apenas quiere un teléfono,” said Frank.

The guy ignored Frank but let Mikey go anyway. He held him at arm’s length and shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He lit up that huge smile again. Mikey couldn't really help smiling back.

The guy stood back and waved them in to... a palace.

Parquet floors, white leather sofas, potted palm trees and long, low lacquered tables covered in objet de crap or whatever that stuff was. Mikey had seen places like this before, but only in his mom’s House&Garden mags.

“Welcome to Casa Del Toro,” the guy said ducking his head to tuck stray tendrils of his awesome hair behind his ears and nodding. "I’m Ray. And, man, this is amazing. Mikey fuckin' Way, in my very own home!” He leaned in a little. “I’m a bit of a fan.”

Mikey gave Ray a half smile and turned to introduce Frank. But Frank was staring wide eyed up the long, galleried hall they were in. Mikey followed his line of sight. To an enormous poster of Mikey – the black and white one from his Moon Over Mountains book tour, _yech_ \- hanging above the fireplace.

"You don't say,” Mikey said, blinking.

“Mi dios. Estamos a través del mother fucking vidrio de Mirada,” Frank breathed.

“Do you translate for him?” Toro asked Mikey with a wince. “My folks spoke Spanish at home sometimes, only, I never picked it up. I’m from New Jersey really. Born and bred.”

Frank spun round. “Oh, thank fuck,” he said, with a whoosh. “We thought you were the local drug baron or some shit!"

_Holy…_ Mikey rolled his eyes. "Um, didn't we stop assuming everyone down here was a drug dealer like, I don’t know, after the Reagan years or some shit? Or at least after Miami Vice went off the air.”

Ray scrunched up his nose. “Oh, no I _am_ the local drug baron," he said holding up both hands. "Just, I do six months here, six months there.” He shrugged. “Jersey Winters are a bitch.”

Frank opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Ray had turned to Mikey and drawn him by the arm into the sumptuous drawing room.

“So what brings you to Colombia, man?” Ray said, sinking into one of the leather couches and patting the space next to him. “God, I loved that short story you wrote for Anne Rice’s birthday last year. _Cemetery Drive_? Tell me a little about that."

Mikey didn’t look at Frank. Mikey just smiled politely at Toro and sat down. He knew how to handle this situation.

Toro wasn’t just a drug baron. He was a Moonie.

*

"It's kind of like that scene in Moon Over Mountains," said Ray as they strolled through the gardens and under the loggia a little later.

They were taking a tour of Ray's 'compound'. Ray had been really excited to show them his water feature. "When Edgar says he can no longer protect Ella from his unnatural lusts, and Ella says to Rosalinana that she couldn't give Edgar up for anything, you know?"

Mikey nodded.

Ray’s eyes went unfocused as he recited, “ _He is the star that guides me, the breeze that fills my sails, the song that fills my head. Oh, how shall I know I am alive if I am not by his side?!_ " He smiled at Mikey.

"Perhaps by punching herself in the face?" Frank muttered under his breath.

"Oh, ah, yeah, I remember writing that,” Mikey said, trying to talk over him. “Admittedly one of my more over-dramatic moments,” he added with a wry smile.

"Oh," Ray said, looking somewhat deflated. "Well, I thought it was, you know, romantic."

Mikey winced. Ray was actually a pretty nice guy, not to mention something of a closet geek.

They had ended up talking - well Ray talked, Mikey nodded and Frank scowled - about vampires and Dungeons&Dragons, and Mikey’s childhood crush on SheRa which had Frank in fits of giggles.

Mikey couldn’t seem to stop himself from asking insane questions about drug mules, small arms shipments and how he bet none of the coke-heads back in Manhattan knew their gear came from such a pretty countryside, for god's sake - Inside he was facepalming, but Ray had taken it in his stride.

It was only because Mikey kept trying to steer the conversation away from his books and onto less embarrassing more neutral territory like The Dark Knight or the DC reboot or the petrol to coca ratio in an ounce of uncut coke. But eventually it couldn’t be helped and the conversation turned back to romance, which seemed to make Frank go quiet all of a sudden, much to Mikey's relief.

"I mean, I loved a woman like that once," Ray said, still talking about Edgar and Ella’s eternal dance. "But man, she was a heart breaker."

Mikey made a sympathetic noise and Ray nodded, looking wistful.

Mikey absolutely did not look at Frank peering over Ray's shoulder because if anything was _actually_ gonna get them shot, it was Frank making ridiculous cut-throat signs and saucer eyes behind Ray's back.

Besides, Mikey was starting enjoying being in his element again, talking about books and movies sitting on a sofa eating pop corn, and not in the middle of the jungle sweating for his life with a distracting machete wielding midget.

There were real toilets and soap here - which Mikey never even knew he cared _that_ much about until he'd had to wipe his ass on a banana leaf. For God's sake, Ray had even given him a clean tee shirt. Mikey tugged it down. _D.A.R.E. To keep kids off drugs_ , it said. Rad.

“You know, between you and me,” Ray said pulling Mikey close as they walked back down the long galleried hall - Ray had chosen not to draw attention to the 3 foot face of fantasy romance’s number one literary star hanging above his fire, so Mikey had let it slide too. “I really hate the drug business. People keep dying; my mom worries, and it’s really been hell on my relationships."

Mikey could, well he couldn't relate, but he'd seen Traffic, and, like, a season and a half of Weeds. It was a shitty business.

“I mean," Ray went on. "I’m just like Edgar, in a lot of ways. I just want to find the right girl so I can give up my life of international organized crime _settle down_. To be honest,” he said laughing and glancing at Frank, who had managed to stop making ‘OMG’ eyes at Mikey just in time. “And you can’t breathe a word of this to anyone. But I haven’t sold drugs in years. Not since Bob - you met Bob?”

Mikey and Frank nodded in unison.

Ray put his hands on his hips and nodded. “Yeah, Bob is really great. I haven’t run a single drug since he came on board and convinced me to get into piracy,” Ray said.

“Well,” said Mikey, mostly to cover the sound of Frank choking. “That sounds very... adventurous?”

Ray laughed. “Oh, I don’t mean like, ‘Arrrgh! Captain Jack’, kind of thing. I mean like...” Ray threw open another set of doors.

Frank squeaked. “Music!” He took two huge steps into the room filled floor to ceiling with boxes over flowing with cds, albums and dvds.

"Exactly," Ray continued. Mikey raised his eyebrows. "Government duty on imported stuff is so high the kids can't really afford new music down here,” Ray said. “And the broadband is for shit, so,” he shrugged, “I fill the gap."

Frank spun around. “Mr. Toro,” he said in an awed hush. “I take back everything I’ve been thinking about you.” And pranced off into the room to rifle through the racks. “There's a punk section, Mikey!” He hollered as he disappeared.

Ray’s eyebrows went up and he grinned.

“Ha ha,” Mikey said wincing at what sounded like Frank throwing himself face first into a stack of crystal cases. “So, you said you had a telephone we could use?”

“I’ll go you one better, Mikey Way,” Ray said with a wink. "You can have my little mule!"

*

“YAAAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOO!" Frank hollered, as Ray’s ‘little mule’ - a monstrous souped up four wheel drive jeep - tore up a rise, sailed into the air and landed on two wheels. "Mad Mother Fucking Max!"

“Dude,” Mikey said, willing some blood back into his face so he could adequately express his horror at Frank’s driving.

He found himself wishing he was back in the hacienda with Ray and his semi automatic weapons, and his broad capable hands - Mikey had noticed them right while Ray was putting on a shirt - and not here, on the edge of his seat, knuckles white as he hung on for dear life.

“Now this, this is traveling, Mikey,” Frank said, ignoring the sound of Mikey sucking in a terrified gasp as Frank narrowly missed a boulder jutting out into the road.

Mikey decided he didn't need to see where they were going and shut his eyes. Frank drove like a fucking insane hyperactive three year old on acid in a thunder storm. The jeep flew over the edge of another rise and landed on the dirt road with a shuddering crash. “Please?” Mikey said again.

They’d left Ray in something of a rush when the village church bell had started ringing. Ray had said it was a sign from Bob that someone was coming. Frank and Mikey could pretty much guess who. Nally, that asshole, was still on their tails.

And now here they were speeding away from Despuesa towards, well, certain doom, Mikey thought as the jeep left the road again, sailing through the air, crunching down and careening along on its way.

Frank hollered again. "That was rad!" he laughed. “Ray, man, what an awesome dude.”

Mikey opened one eye and looked at Frank. Frank glanced at him. “What?”

“You didn’t think he was so great before the cds and the-" he waved a hand at the jeep. “Whatnot.” Mikey shut his eyes again as a low hanging branch raced towards them.

“Yeah well,” said Frank, as the jeep swerved. "Ray's awesomeness aside, somewhere in Bogota there’s a CIA operative opening a file on you right now. You know that right?”

Mikey peeled his eyes open to see Frank watching him. Frank shrugged. “But, actually what Ray’s doing is kind of cool. With the music and all.”

Mikey closed his eyes again. His nostrils flared.

“Aw, come on Mikey,” Frank said, easing up on the gas. “Relax for crying out loud. We got away from the baddies, we made friends with a drug baron and we’re... we’re gonna get to Cartagena and find your bro. Okay? ”

When Mikey didn’t respond after a couple of minutes, Frank said, “Come on. You want to drive?” and slammed his foot on the brakes.

Mikey hurled forward into the windshield. “Ow,” he said, peeling himself off the plastic and back into his seat.

“Oh shit,” Frank winced and giggled. “Sorry. Brakes are better than I realized.” He patted Mikey, then jumped out of the jeep and ran round to the other side. “Come on, move over.”

Mikey pushed his glasses back on straight and scooted over into the driver’s seat.

Without waiting for Frank to sit down, he set off, driving at a sedate and sensible 45mph.

After a couple of minutes of Frank staring at the side of his head, Mikey said, “How’s my driving?”

“I don’t know,” Frank replied. “I think I slipped into a coma back about thirteen miles ago.”

Mikey ignored him. Ahead of them the road became a ‘T’ junction. Mikey slowed to a stop, leaned forward and looked both ways down the long, long, empty, empty road.

“Oh come on!” Frank cried.

Mikey flicked on his indicator and pulled out into the road opposite.

Frank slumped back into the seat and folded his arms in disgust. “This is no way to treat a Grade A Road Beast,” Frank whined.

Mikey adjusted his rear view mirror.

Frank pointed at Mikey. “I think it’s because you can’t go fast,” said Frank shaking his finger and sitting forward. “I think it’s coz you’re a chicken.”

Mikey snorted.

“Mikey Way can’t go fast,” Frank said. “That’s what _I’d_ be telling Rolling motherfucking Stone magazine.”

Mikey pursed his lips. “I can too.”

“Can not.”

Mikey put his foot down.

*

_Well, this is embarrassing,_ Mikey thought as he picked his way gingerly up the side of the road. "I'm not going to say I told you so," said Mikey, steadfastly ignoring the hole in the seat of his pants as he hobbled a little further and sat down. "But for the record, I totally told you so."

He glanced at Frank who was pressing a water bottle to his bleeding eyebrow, and grinning. “I will never question your need for speed again, Mikey.” Frank said.

It wasn’t a crash. It was a flat tire. But still, it’d sent Frank flying nearly over the windshield, and had thrown Mikey, who had never before driven anything faster than 65 on the Jersey Turnpike, right out the open side of the jeep and into a bush.

It could have been so much worse. The jeep was still intact – except for the tire - and so were they. In fact, it had been a bonus because Mikey got to sit at the side of the road and watch Frank – who said he was a dab hand with a jack and was more than happy to believe Mikey _wasn't_ \- get brutal with a tire iron.

When Frank finished tightening the bolts, he stood and pulled up the hem of his shirt up to wipe the sweat from his face. The sweat on his belly made his skin glisten, made the ink there stand out against his honeyed flesh.

Mikey stared at the curling letters and impish birds on his skin, at the thin trail of hair leading down to...

He looked up to see Frank smirking at him.

Mikey felt his face flame up.

Frank let his tee shirt drop.

After a minute or two of futzing with the jack, the tire iron and the blown tire – which seemed to involve bending over with his ass in the air a lot - he said, “If I promise not to gun it over 60 and shit, will you let me drive again?” He smirked at Mikey, raising an eyebrow.

Mikey nodded, stood and held the keys out to Frank. As Frank walked past him, he wolf-whistled, and Mikey remembered to reach behind him and hold the seat of his pants closed.

Would his humiliation never end?

*

"Hey, Frank?" Mikey said after they’d been driving for a little while. He’d seen something out across the plain. Something that looked familiar. “Frankie, slow down.”

Frank’s absolute outrage at being made to slow down from going barely 50 was pretty funny.

“Cool your jets, Turbo. I just saw something back there," Mikey said, standing up in his seat as Frank started to pull over.

Frank stopped at a bend in the road where the lush green valley dipped away from the burn. In the distance two tall black rocks poked up through the jungle foliage like a victory sign. They were such an odd formation, and Mikey felt sure he'd seen them somewhere before. But where?

“What is it?” Frank asked, when Mikey sat back down heavily. Mikey pulled his messenger bag onto his lap. Gerard’s parcel crinkled inside.

"Oh," he said to himself.

"What?" Frank said again, bouncing in his seat a little, and peering over the top of the windscreen.

The rocks, they were on Gerard's map.

“Frank,” he said, swallowing and turning in his seat and looking at him long and hard. “What if, like, someone found something and some other people wanted to like, take it, so he sent it to someone who would keep it safe, but like... Then he got caught and had to get the thing back and so he had to call his little brother to bring it to him, and...”

“Wait, wait,” Frank held up both his hands. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Mikey took a deep breath and fished around inside the lining of his messenger bag where he’d stashed the map for safekeeping. He took it out and stood up in the Jeep again.

“I wasn’t really honest with you Frankie. Back - back at the bus,” Mikey said. “And then people were shooting at us and Ray and you, and - I'm so sorry, but, fuck.”

“Mikey, what the hell is going on," Frank said, clambering up on his seat to stand up next to Mikey. He looked down at the map. “What the fuck is that?”

Mikey took a deep breath and handed it to Frank. “You know how I said people were after me because of my bro?”

Frank frowned down at the mottled brown paper. Mikey tapped the drawing of the rocks near the center, then pointed at the two rocks in the distance. Frank looked out at them and back down at the page. “Well they are,” Mikey said. “But it’s not because he’s rich. He just - seems to know where the rich stuff is."

Frank ran the tips of his finger of the red inked X next to the stones on the map. “El Corazon,” he whispered.

“Gerard sent this to me; it's why I came down here. And I think it’s what Nally wants.” Mikey said. "I don't know where Gee got it. Bought it at an art auction. Stole it from some monks. Fuck if I know where Gerard gets these things."

Mikey pointed at the words in the centre of the page. “X marks the spot, right?”

"Holy fuck," Frank said.

"Pretty much," Mikey said back.

*

"I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about the map,” Frank said, rubbing his face. “What am I saying? _I_ wouldn’t even tell me about the map. But still, dude. People are shooting at me, for fucks sake.”

“I know,” Mikey said wringing his hands. “I know, but I didn’t know if I could, like, trust you. And Gerard is in so much trouble and I just - I didn’t fucking care about El Corazon. I just wanted to get to my brother.”

Frank stared at Mikey. They were still sitting by the side of the road where Mikey had told Frank everything - the phone call, what Nally had wanted, why he was in this mess in the first place. Frank was taking it pretty well, considering what Mikey had gotten him into.

“You trust me now?” Frank asked, looking into Mikey’s eyes.

“Yes.”

"Are you sure?"

Mikey leaned his head back. “You could have left me there when those guys were shooting at us,” Mikey said, dropping his chin and looking at Frank. “You could have dumped me on Ray.”

Frank frowned.

“You didn’t,” Mikey finished.

Frank gave Mikey a level look. “That map, it might be _real_ , Mikey.”

Mikey shrugged. “Whoever has Gee wants it.”

“Maybe, maybe they sent Nally to, like, make sure you didn’t get any funny ideas and go after El Corazon yourself?”

Mikey nodded. “I guess," Mikey sighed. "So what do we do?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Frank said frowning.

“Call the police?”

Frank nearly choked. “Are you fucking kidding? Nally probably _is_ the police. No. Dude, we get El Corazon.”

Mikey blanched. "I don't…"

“C’mon,” Frank said, whacking Mikey’s thigh with the back of his hand before starting the jeep and setting off. “There’s a town about five miles up this road. We can debate treasure hunting after we eat something and get you some new pants. Colombia doesn’t need to see your butt, Mikeyway.”

“Thanks,” Mikey said. Frank giggled and put his foot down.

*

There was a motel in the town called Traiga Más Cuchillos, which Frank said was hilarious because it meant Bring More Knives. Mikey wasn't too thrilled about that name, but it looked like a nice enough place, and it was near the market where Frank insisted they both buy new clothes and Mikey some boots.

At the motel Mikey had showered quickly, only to end up waiting out front - all self-conscious in his new, ill-fitting tee shirt and pants - for Frank for ages. Apparently for every hour Mikey needed to get ready, Frank needed two.

It was pretty spectacular to be really clean though, Mikey thought. He made a mental note to try being really clean all the time in the future, in honor of this epic moment of cleanliness, but he was pretty sure it wouldn't last. Not if they were going treasure hunting, anyway.

On the drive into town Mikey had fretted a lot about Frank's 'plan' to go after El Corazon.

“We don’t even know what El Corazon is, Frank," Mikey had said after a while.

Frank shook his head. “No, but I’m willing to bet it’s worth like, heaps.”

“Enough to get my brother back?”

“Yeah,” said Frank, eyes fixed on the road. “Yeah, of course.”

After a minute Frank said, "Okay, share and share alike and whatnot."

Mikey tilted his head at him.

Frank took a deep breath. "When I was a kid, my mom had this friend. They ran a dance school together, and Mom couldn’t always get a sitter for me and stuff, so I had to go to the fucking school and be, like, master of ceremonies.”

Mikey snorted.

“I was four, dick face,” Frank said. “Anyway, this friend of my mom’s, she was from Colombia." He laughed. "Man, I had the biggest fucking crush on her.”

“Oh,” said Mikey.

Frank smiled to himself. “Yeah man, fuck. Anyway, she used to tell these stories about home, right? And she always said the mountains here were filled with hidden treasures.”

Mikey looked out the window as Frank spoke. A pink dusk was creeping up on the hills around them.

“So when I quit school I came down here to like, I dunno, figure shit out. See the world, find my fortune, maybe make enough money to do the thing I really want to do. Which is, you know, the shop. That I showed you." Frank stopped talking. Mikey noticed that his cheeks were kind of pink and his eyes were dreamy.

"You came down here to hunt for treasure? So you could go home and run a shop?"

Frank frowned. "Well, when you put it like that," he said, “It sounds mental. Ah, but yeah. Pretty much.”

"Oh man,” Mikey said. "You and Gee are gonna get on so well."

Frank looked at Mikey out the corner of his eye.

Mikey had waved a hand at Frank. “Gerard's Plan B was to be a caped crusader.  
Frank had thrown back his head and laughed.

The memory of Frank’s laugh warmed Mikey. He hoped he could make Frank laugh like that again tonight. Frank’s laugh was infectious, and made Mikey feel like he was sharing in something illicit with him. Which, if Frank got his way tomorrow, would pretty much be true.

Mikey tugged at the hem of the tee shirt and pulled up the jeans, checking himself out in the big ass motel window. His boots were pretty Tomb Raider. His name was _Mikey_ , just like in the Goonies. And he was travelling with Indiana Jones Mark II. He was about as ready as a guy who spent his life shut in his apartment writing pseudo-porn was ever gonna get to go questing for treasure.

He turned when he saw Frank bounding down the stairs in the window’s reflection.

At least, it looked like Frank, only this guy’s hair was all black and shiny, and his skin, even with all that ink, was scrubbed pink. He was in tight black jeans and skinny red tee shirt with the words Kill ‘Em All, stretched over his chest. He looked so much like some ordinary guy from Jersey that without the bullwhip and the machete that Mikey almost didn't recognize him.

Except for the grin - the grin was _all_ Frank.

Mikey felt his face heat up. _Holy shit_.

"What are you staring at?” Frank asked when he jumped the last couple of stairs to land at the bottom next to Mikey. “Quit it."

Mikey shrugged and tried to look anywhere but at Frank.

"So," he said.

"Yeah," Mikey said back.

After a few seconds of awkwardness and trying to surreptitiously fix stray hairs in the window's reflection, Frank sort of scuffed his toe and tugged at the bottom of Mikey's sleeveless tee shirt. "This is, " he coughed. "This is cool. You look…"

Mikey nodded. He really hoped his face wasn't as red as it felt hot. "Um, yours is too, you know." He shrugged one shoulder and looked away. _Dear God. Be lamer, I dare you._

They stood there awkwardly for a bit more and then Mikey blurted out, “Burritos?”

Frank snorted. “Burritos are from Mexico, Mikeyway,” Frank said with a raised eyebrow. “In Colombia, we eat _Una libra cuarta con queso_.”

Frank led the way out into the square. Mikey was happy to follow.

*

“I can’t believe I came 300 miles into the middle of the Amazon to eat a fucking cheese burger,” Mikey said, before shoveling another mouthful in.

Frank smiled with his mouth full, bread and salad clinging to his teeth. He swallowed. “It’s good though, right?”

Mikey nodded. He watched Frank stuff a couple of chips into his mouth and take a slurp of his wine. Frank ate with a gusto, hell, he did everything with a gusto. It was kind of… mesmerizing to Mikey, who some days couldn't work up enough gusto to get out of his pjs. Gee had gusto. But his was a kind of manic zest for life, always racing around, searching for the next thing. But Frank wasn't like that. Frank took what was offered, however mental, dangerous or impulsive, and just sucked the mother fuckin' marrow out of it.

Mikey watched him sucking the juice of the ripe tomato off his fingers. His stomach fluttered.

“Okay, so, here’s what I think," Frank said, inelegantly picking a bit of lettuce out of his teeth. "We hack out into the jungle tomorrow, grab El Corazon - if it’s there, whatever the fuck it is - then high tail it to Cartagena. Rescue Gerard with the map, sell El Corazon. And live like mother fucking kings for the rest of our lives.”

Mikey stared. “That’s your plan?”

Frank grinned again. “It’s a good plan.”

“Except for the poison darts, runaway boulders, rusty spike impalings, ancient curses and men with guns."

Frank gave him a level look. "Steven Spielberg is not responsible for Colombian archaeology, Mikey," he said slowly.

Mikey rolled his eyes. "Okay, but if we get it or whatever, we're probably gonna have to trade El Corazon for my brother, so.”

Frank looked up. “Oh, yeah, well, I mean. Yeah. Of course. But I’m hoping they’ll just take the map for him. _They_ won’t know we’ve already got the treasure.”

Mikey shook his head. “Anyway, we couldn’t keep it, Frank. What if they tracked us down later? Or what if we got in trouble with the government?”

Frank rolled his eyes. “Okay, Dr. Brody," Frank said, smiling out one side of his mouth.

Mikey narrowed his eyes. "Marcus Brody was the real hero of those films," he said airily, "Putting up with Indy's massive ego."

Frank snickered. "I'm going to let that one slide, Mikeyway, because I am the one with the bullwhip and the machete." He leant forward and put his hand on the table right next to Mikey's. Their fingers brushed together. “I can afford to be gracious.”  
Frank's eyes twinkled in the light of the colored lanterns encircling the restaurant and the tiny candle in the middle of the table. He looked at Mikey and licked his lips.

Mikey was so transfixed he about jumped out of his seat when music filled the little open-air restaurant.

Frank laughed. “Holy shit,” he said. “Is that like, a salsa version of Smells Like Teen Spirit?”

Mikey looked around. It was a pretty young crowd, and they were all starting to get up and move out into the square, dancing.

"Hey, you wanna dance?” Frank said, bouncing in his seat a little. “Dance with me Mikeyway. Look, those guys are pogoing!"

Mikey raised his eyebrows. He looked at the kids Frank was pointing out, laughing and bouncing into each other.

Frank stood and offered Mikey his hand.

Mikey didn't just have butterflies in his tummy; they were great big luna moths, batting their satin wings against his ribs. He felt like he was stuck in the middle of some crazy 1930s oddball rom-com. Only Mikey didn't know how, because all the little asshole did was tease him and push him off ravines and make him laugh and… shit.

Mikey looked at Frank's hand, and up to Frank's face. He looked so hopeful.

Mikey let Frank pull him onto the dance floor. Other dancers pressed in around them, and Mikey could feel Frank's eyes on him, the way he hadn't let go of Mikey's hand, the way he pressed closer to Mikey than anyone else.

“Come on, Mikeyway,” Frank said, reaching up and touching Mikey’s jaw with the tips of his fingers.

A crowed of pogoing teens pushed them and bundled Mikey closer to Frank.

Mikey bent his head. Their lips touched and Frank surged up in Mikey's arms.

His lips were warm and soft, and he parted them for Mikey as soon as he touched his tongue to them. He tasted like salt and the cheap wine they were drinking. He tasted incredible. Frank’s tongue against his, licking into him, felt incredible. Frank was incredible. _God_.

Mikey pulled back.

"Don't fucking stop now, Mikeyway," Frank breathed against his cheek, his hands clenching and unclenching at Mikey’s waist. "Please don't stop now."

Mikey shook his head, grabbed Frank's hand and the bottle of wine, and dragged Frank back to the motel.

*

Clothes came undone, lips and tongues met, and fingers splayed across taut shivering bellies. There was the taste of wine spilled on hot, slick, skin. And it was so good. So fucking good.

Mikey’s hands shook and his heart beat so hard and fast. He felt Frank’s nipple harden against his lips, heard Frank sigh, saw him struggle to push off his jeans and spread himself out on the bed beneath the mosquito net. _God_.

Moonlight from the open window filtered through the net and played over Frank’s flesh, making it glow. “Come here,” he whispered.

Mikey’s head swam as he crawled on top of Frank. Every inch of his skin was on fire because Frank was naked and keening beneath him, his hand tight on Mikey’s cock.

He pulled Mikey’s hips forward, making Mikey crawl up his body to kneel - knees spread wide - over Frank’s face, his mouth.

He pressed the head of Mikey’s cock to his lips and licked, eyes closed.

“Wanna suck you so bad, Mikey. Fuck,” he breathed over Mikey’s tender flesh. And Mikey folded down over him, face pressed into the pillow as Frank did just that, sucked him in, moaning as Mikey’s hips stuttered forward.

“Yeah...” Frank whined, when Mikey’s cock slipped free of the hot wet of Frank’s mouth. “Fuck my mouth, Mikey.”

Mikey couldn’t help himself. He fucked, dragging the head of his cock over the soft-hard of Frank’s lips, pushing it into Frank’s throat.

Mikey slipped one arm down between them and cupped Frank’s neck, leaning his weight on his other arm. Frank’s fingers slipped behind Mikey’s balls to tease at his hole.  
When Frank pressed a finger inside, slick with sweat and saliva, Mikey came with the long hot lance of his orgasm ripping through him as he groaned into the pillow.

Frank licked him clean as Mikey shivered and keened above him, and then slipped out from under him before Mikey collapsed onto the bed. _Holy fuck._  
“Frank, fuck... your fucking mouth,” Mikey whined, face still pressed into the pillow.

He felt sucking kisses across his back, his thighs, and heard the sound of Frank’s voice, harsh and deep, chanting his name, and “Up, up, Mikey. Get on your knees for me?”

Mikey pushed back into Frank’s kisses, raising his ass, spreading himself wide. He was rewarded with the soft, squirming pleasure of Frank’s tongue at his hole. “Oh, _God_ , Frankie,” he hissed, eyes squeezed shut.

“Yeah?” Frank breathed against the puckered flesh and kissed his ass.

“Yeah,” Mikey groaned. “Fucking, yeah.” He pushed back more, and Frank’s tongue was on him again, flicking over the tight muscle, pushing inside.

Then the sharp spear of delight as Frank’s finger slid into him, pushing and pulling against his rim, slowly, so slowly. A second finger, and Mikey felt so full already, but he wanted more.

“Please...”

“Mikey?”

“ _Please_ Frank...”

“I can’t - I can’t fuck you Mikey,” Frank whined, bending down and pressing his forehead to Mikey’s hip. “No condoms.”

“Fuck.” Mikey wanted to cry. He panted and pushed back. “I-it’s okay. Just your fingers. It’s... God, come on.”

The feeling of Frank’s pushing into him was so good, just on the edge of painful and too full. Then there was the sound of Frank spitting, and the slick wet sound of Frank jacking himself.

Mikey looked back over his shoulder. Frank was watching Mikey’s ass take his fingers while his hand moved furiously on his cock.

“Oh Mikey, Mikey, _Mikey_... Want to push it in, Mikey-- Fu-uck.” Frank knelt up and rubbed the head of his cock on Mikey’s hip and came, spurting over Mikey’s ass and lower back.

Mikey’s cock twitched. Fuck, he wanted... He wanted...

Frank fell to one side of the bed. “Hold on,” he panted, stroking Mikey’s side. “Just gimme one second. I’ll get you a cloth.”

Mikey squirmed in the bed, feeling the come siding down the hollow of his back. It was a little gross, but then Mikey remembered how it’d felt hitting his skin, hot and wet, with Frank saying _Fuuuck_ , and Mikey’s face warm with a renewed arousal.

“Gimme a second and I’m gonna want to go again,” he said, stretching out on his stomach and looking at Frank over his shoulder.

Frank giggled. “Better get you cleaned up then,” he said and scrambled out of the bed.

Mikey reached behind him and touched a little of the quickly cooling puddle of come on his back.

_Ungh._ He wanted to suck Frank. That’s what he wanted to do next and then maybe go out and find some fucking condoms and fuck him right into next week. He licked his finger and shuddered, reaching for the still full bottle of wine on the bedside table and taking a swig. It’d been so long since Mikey had been touched. He didn’t want to waste any time now. It was going to be a long night.

*

Oh, oh _God_... Mikey was awake, which was _terrible_. It took him a few moments to figure out where the hell he was and what parts of him hurt. It was pretty much all the parts of him, and he had no idea where he was except that he was hanging half off the side of a bed.

The floor, which he was sure he'd never seen before, was a blur. Moving only his arm, he reached for where he hoped there was a bedside table. There was, and he found his glasses there, thank fuck. He put them on wincing. They were a little sticky with what smelled like wine.

Mikey looked back over the side of the bed. Yeah, no, he'd never seen that floor before. He rolled gingerly onto his back. Ceiling was pretty new too.

He ran his tongue over his furry feeling teeth. "Ungh," he moaned. Grim.

Slowly the night before came back to him in dribs and drabs of bright, lurid color. Frank. They'd gotten another bottle of god knows what, local firewater from reception and then. There were condoms. And he recalled trying to taste the ink on Frank's belly, his knuckles, the scorpion on his neck. He remembered the feeling of Frank holding him down, the taut, hot strength of his arms, his cock. _God, his cock._ Mikey's ass ached – compared to the rest of him, that felt fucking fantastic actually.

Mikey grinned, and gave himself a fist pump and then touched his throbbing temple gingerly. Sex with a jungle-hardened flesh maestro was motherfucking awesome.

He wondered where that jungle-hardened flesh maestro might be right now and if he might like to have another go at whatever the hell they had a go at last night, but the bed beside him was empty.

Maybe Frank was in the bathroom? But the bathroom door was wide open. The room was empty.

Mikey hauled himself out of bed, grabbed his boxers from - _Jesus_ , they were hanging from the ceiling light - and pulled them on. The room spun a little and he had to lean against the wall for a couple of minutes until it stopped. Frank, fucking Frank.

His backpack was gone, so were his clothes. And this time, really, so was Frank.

Mikey's heart sank. He searched the room for his messenger bag. The bag and the map were gone too.

Minutes later, dressed and pissed, Mikey took the hotel stairs two at a time and strode across the motel parking lot. Colombia wasn't that big a country, Mikey thought. The fire of outrage, humiliation and indignity burned ice cold in his veins.

He'd find fucking Frank fucking Iero eventually. And when he did, he was going to, well, he didn’t know what, but Mikey was from New Jersey. He’d think of something.

“Mr. Way?” A man in dark glasses and a 100 degree Colombian-heat-defying three piece suit stepped onto the footpath in front of him.

“Oh fuck,” Mikey said as he felt someone grab his arms from behind and a sack came down over his face. Something hard and heavy connected with the back of his head. Lights out.

*

"Mikey."

Everything hurt and he couldn't feel his knees.

" _Mikey._ ”

On second thought, his knees were aching and it was his head he couldn't feel. That was a whole lot more disturbing. Oh, unholy fuck. He'd been _kidnapped._

Mikey rolled his head on his neck, but everything got really blurry and his stomach started to heave a little. He tried to move, but he couldn't move anything except his legs. He was tied to a chair.

"Mikey! Mikey, for fuck's sake. Stay with me dude."

He twitched his nose, _son of a bitch_ , his glasses were gone. Okay, okay. He was tied to a chair, with no glasses, in the dark and someone was yelling his name. Mikey took a deep breath.

_Frank_ , Frank was yelling his name.

A sharp jabbing in his shin brought him round a little more. "Fuck," he said jerking away.

"Oh my god, thank fucking fuck. Mikey, Mikey, I thought - Fuck, dude. You're _alive_ " came Frank's voice, desperate and relieved.

Mikey squinted; yeah, it was Frank sitting opposite him alright.

"You know, I'm starting to think some of the things I've read about Colombia might be true," Mikey slurred. God, his head was pounding. Who gets kidnapped on a fucking hangover? It was like a crappy Bradley Cooper movie for fuck's sake.

"Mikey, it's gonna be okay," Frank hissed. "I - I'm gonna get us out of this."

"Frank?"

"Yeah. Yeah, Mikey, it's me," Frank said.

Mikey squinted, trying to make Frank come into focus a little more. He judged the distance between them, scootched down in the chair, and punted Frank's shin as hard as he possibly could.

Frank let out a string of expletives. "Ow! What the fucking fuck was that for?!" he cried.

Mikey deeply regretted the fact he couldn't see the pain on Frank's stupid, lying, hot sex tricking face.

"Does the dinner, dance, _romance_ thing usually work for you, or did you trawl that one out especially for me?" Mikey said, and kicked at Frank again.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Frank hissed, and Mikey could see him trying to get out of the way of Mikey’s flying boots as much as possible.

Frank pulled his knees up and kicked back. "Stop fucking kicking me, dickface! What's the matter with you?"

Mikey kicked at him again. "What's the matter with me? What's the matter with you, _hit and runner,_." He could feel his face heating up, his eyes prickling. He felt so fucking humiliated and so fucking, fucking, boiling with rage. All the things he'd said, the things _Frank_ had said. Mikey clenched his jaw, breathing hard though his nose.

"Oh Mikey, you're so _hot_ , Mikey," he hissed, "I wanted to do this the minute I saw you Mikey. _Tug my balls, Mikey_."

Frank went silent. Mikey made a desultory kick at his knee and he didn't even move away.

"That's - you think I was…"

Mikey snorted.

"That's the kind of guy you think I am?" Frank said.

Mikey swallowed hard and looked away. "You played me. You said it yourself. You came here to hunt for treasure. You found it."

After a long moment Frank said, "I promise, Mikey." His voice was high and tight. "I promise you, that’s not true."

"Whatever," said Mikey, slumping against his bonds.

"I went out to fill up the jeep. I took your bag coz you had all the money. I was coming back."

Mikey struggled against the ropes again. Fuck it.

"I was fucking coming back, Mikey," Frank said desperately. “I fucking _was_.”

A voice from across the room jerked Mikey out of his slump and he heard Frank gasp too.

“Our profile,” the voice said, “suggests that Iero, Frank A. - Formerly of Trenton, New Jersey. Rutgers dropout, archaeology and anthropology double major. Former Junior Ranger and member of the Bear Grylls fan club - probably was going to come back for you, Mr. Way.”

“What the fuck?” Frank squeaked. “Who the fuck are you? Let us go. This is fucked.”

The lights flared and Mikey could almost, almost, see where they were. It looked, and now that he thought about it, it smelled like a bar. He still couldn’t see who was speaking to him.

"Oh boys," the voice, a woman's voice said, “Boys, you’ve made my job almost too easy.”

Blurry figures moved towards them, silhouetted by the white glow of open doors. Mikey felt like he knew that voice from somewhere. He just couldn’t place it.

One of the indistinct figures came close, and bent in front of him. It reached out for Mikey’s face and Mikey struggled to get away. But then, suddenly, he could see. A square-jawed guy, the one from the street with the three-piece suit and the dark glasses, was pushing Mikey's glasses up his nose.

Mikey looked away, his heart pounding. He’d watched enough episodes of the X Files to know a spook when he saw one.

A woman flicking through a thick file stood in the center of the bar. “All too easy, boys, seriously,” she said.

_Holy fuck._ It was the woman from the airport. The one who put Mikey on the Cartagena bus, only her hokey ‘exotic’ accent was gone, and she was wearing a suit too. She smiled at Mikey, and nodded to one of the G-men. He went and stood, a little alarmingly, right behind Frank his hands on Frank’s shoulders.

“Mr. Way, I tried to make this simple. I tried to help you help me find lost artifact of national significance number 34557, aka El Corazon. But no," the woman said, putting her hands on her hips and thinning her lips. "You had to go team up with Frodo Baggins here and try an' fuck me.”

Frank snorted. “Ew,” he said. The G-man slapped him hard and open palmed on the ear.

Mikey sucked in a breath. “What the fuck. Who are you?” Mikey said.  
Frank seemed to swoon, but then he giggled and pulled himself up. The spook lifted his hand to do it again, but the woman made a tsking sound and he stopped.

“Don’t mess up that pretty little face,” she said. “Yet.”

Mikey took a deep breath. “I think there’s been some kind of, you know, misunderstanding,” he said, twitching his nose. “I write romance novels.”

The woman blinked. “Mr. Way, do you know who I am?” She asked, slinking out from behind her men and crouching down in front of Mikey, her full red lips inches from his.

“Um, Colombia Tourism rep?”

She flicked Mikey in the forehead.

“Fucking leave him alone you fucking psycho!” Frank yelled.

Mikey heard Frank getting worse than a slap. Way worse. He flinched and tugged at the bonds on his arms.

“My name is Victoria Asher, but they call me Vicky T.” She said raising her perfectly arched eyebrows as if it was something to be impressed by.

“Um…”

“The _Cobra_?” she said, incredulous, as if that should jog Mikey's memory.

“Ah...”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, I’m CIA, you little dipshit,” she tsked again and stalked off to the bar and poured herself a drink. “Smuggling and antiquities. Langley got intel from our man in Cartagena that some guy called Way had stumbled on a lead to this, El Corazon, and was trying to smuggle the find out of Colombia and into the US. So they put me on it because I take care of this pig shit valley. And you know what, according to Way’s find, is in this pig shit valley?”

Frank said, “Pigs?” The sound of the goon’s fist connecting with Frank’s face was raw and wet this time. Mikey’s jaw clenched.

“ _El Corazon_ ," Vicky T said, curling a lip at Frank. She turned back to Mikey. “Mr. Way, are you using your so called ‘celebrity’ as a cover to try and smuggle priceless antiquities out from under the noses of our dear neighbors and allies in the war on drugs?” She pointed at Mikey. “Because I think you are.”

Mikey blinked and looked at Frank. They thought _Gerard_ was smuggling _antiquities_? They thought Mikey was Gerard? _Oh, for fuck’s sake._

Mikey sighed. “I confess,” he said drolly. “Clearly you are the I in CIA.”

Frank giggled. “Ow, quit it you big dork,” he said when the G-man slapped him again. “Listen, lady,” Frank said. “Last I heard that El Gorgonzola thing shit was a fucking myth. Next thing you’ll be telling me Aztecs buried spaceships under the Torre Colpatria.”

Mikey looked at Frank who half winked back. His eye was swelling shut, his lip cut and bleeding. It made Mikey’s heart ache.

Vicky T turned to Frank. She smiled slowly. “Come on Frankie,” she said, slinking up to him. “You and I, we're in the same business. We find things,” she said, glancing over he shoulder at Mikey, “And we take care of them. Right?”

She put her stiletto-heeled foot up on the edge of Frank’s chair and batted her lashes. “You find El Corazon and sell it, maybe get yourself and Mikey here killed in the process? No one will ever know that Frank Iero, Rutgers archeology department failure, found El Corazon. Just,” she trailed a finger along Frank’s jaw. “Give me the map and I’ll make sure El Corazon gets the treatment it deserves. And, ah, so will you..”

She leaned forward and the hem of her skirt rode up a little, exposing more of her thigh.

Mikey cursed his heart for sinking as Frank’s eyes dropped down Vicky-T’s leg.

“Um,” Mikey said. “Miss? You have a run in your stockings. Do you have any clear nail polish? I can totally fix it.”

She threw a sneer over her shoulder at Mikey before turning a does eyed smile on Frank. She sighed. “Whaddaya say, Frankie?”

“Oh honey," Frank said, a wry smile playing across his lips. "You are so barking up the wrong gay tree."

His eyes flicked to Mikey and Mikey’s heart did a little flip.

Vicky T growled and pulled her leg back, stomping on the ground. "Listen, you little punk,” she snapped. “If you think you can walk on to _my_ turf and steal antiquities , when _I’ve_ spent the BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE, down here trying to protect them you've got another fucking thing coming!"

She pointed at one of her men. "Put them on a plane to Langley. We can sort this out back home."

Mikey's heart lurched. Fuck, he had to get out of there. If they sent him back, Gerard was a dead man. He looked at Frank, wild eyed.

Only Frank wasn’t sitting in the chair, he was standing behind Vicky T and pushing her at one of her Goons. "Victoria,” he cried, “your best years are ahead of you, didn't you know? And also, we are completely and absolutely getting to that fucking treasure before you!"

He looked at Mikey and waved a nail file - seriously - at him, and winked.

The spooks started closing in on Frank. But Vicky T got to him first.

"This isn’t the States, Iero. My rules down here. And my rules say, you and what army?" she hissed.

As if on cue, the doors to the drinking hole swung open, and standing back-lit by the midday sun was none other than Mikey's personal fan-army, Ray Toro.

"Holy shit, Victoria Asher! Long time no see," Ray chimed. “I see you've met my friends, Frank and Mikey. Mikey Way. You know, _Mikey Way_.” Ray pointed at Vicky T. “Mikey! This is the heart breaker I told you about! So stoked you got to meet her!"

Vicky let out a high-pitched groan of frustration. "Fucking fucking _hell_ Toro!" she yelled.

And then all hell broke loose.

*

Mikey would never be comfortable saying it, but he was a lover, not a fighter.

He spent the majority of the brawl that ensued tied to a chair and trying to duck as Ray’s goons went head to head with Vicky T’s G-men.

At one point he saw Ray fighting a guy with a mother fucking sword and Bob using Frank as a kind of human battering ram, which was, well… it would have been hilarious, if it were a movie.

But it wasn’t a movie, this was an actual fact brawl in a _bar_ and Mikey was tied to a goddamned chair in the middle of it.

A bottle of whiskey whizzed past his ear. "Fuck!" He shouted and then "Ray!" as someone came at Ray with a pool cue. Ray knocked the guy out with a bar stool and gave Mikey the thumbs up.

Over in one corner Frank seemed to have four guys on top of him and Mikey’s heart was in his mouth. But he threw them all off with a roundhouse punch and kicked one in the ear. Mikey tried really hard not to be impressed. Fucking Frank.

Mikey watched as Frank then nut punched G-man Number Two, ducked under Goon Number Three, and narrowly missed Vicky T’s stiletto to the neck. He raced to the double doors, grabbed his backpack off the bar where the G-men had been about to start searching it, and burst out to freedom.

He didn’t even look back.

Mikey stared after him, his heart in his mouth. _Oh god._ Frank had the map. The map was gone. _Gerard_.

Bob smashed his way towards Mikey, taking out three G-men with a cocktail shaker and an ice bucket. “You sure know how to throw a party, Mikey Way,” he said as he started untying him. Mikey stood up and immediately ducked a flying chair.

“How did you find us?” he asked, eyes darting around the room.

Bob grinned. “These numbnuts hotwired the mule and brought it here. Everyone in the valley knows whose jeep that is.” He shrugged.

“Won’t you guys, like, get disappeared or deported something? They’re CIA, man,” Mikey said. From the corner of his eye he saw Vicky T leap off the bar onto one of Ray’s guys and start punching him in the neck.

Bob shook his head. “Nah, this is like... a lovers tiff. They’re always getting together for these little shindigs.” Bob ducked as a G-man swung for him, before knocking him out with one punch. “Now that Ray’s out of the drugs biz, anyway. I like to think of it as flirting.”

They watched Vicky T launch herself onto Ray’s back next and start choking him. Ray’s grin was particularly large.

“See?” Bob said. “It’s kind of sweet. Speaking of which, where’s your little side kick?”

Mikey looked up at Bob. Bob frowned and squeezed his shoulder. “I’d stay and talk it out, but…” He gestured to the melee still going on around them.

Mikey nodded and Bob dove back into the fight.

Mikey figured he could avoid getting smacked over if he stuck to the edges of the fight and made for the door, but he hadn’t gotten far when a G-man tried to grab him in some kind of complicated choke hold. Mikey wriggled out of his grasp.

“Mikey!" Ray shouted, and Mikey looked up to see Ray – Vicky T still clinging to his neck - holding up his fists. He threw one fist out and it connected with an advancing G-Man. He nodded at Mikey.

Mikey looked at his fists and his own advancing G-man. _Oh fuck it_. His first swing went wide, but while the spook was laughing at him, Mikey hauled up and thumped him, right in the eye. “Ow!” Mikey yelled, and shook out his hand. G-man was not amused. So Mikey followed it up with a kung fu chop to the throat, a' la Fists of Fury, one of his and Gerard's favorite films when they were kids.

Much to Mikey’s surprise the guy went down like a ton of soggy bricks. Mikey just stared, horrified. He looked at his hands and back at the figure on the floor.

"Oh shit, dude. Sorry," he said, ducking down to see if the guy was all right.

"Don't _help him_ , Mikey!" Ray shouted. He was holding Vicky T off with one hand as she swung for him. "Get out of here!"

Mikey _Five Tooth Dragon Power_ punched and _Drunken Warrior_ kicked his way across the room, aiming for the door. He did it mostly with his eyes shut, so he wasn't convinced he made a great deal of difference to the fight. But apparently a lifetime of watching Hong Kong Classics and Saturday Morning Cartoons had given him mad skillz. Gerard would be, like, _so_ proud.

_Oh, Gee_. He couldn’t fall apart here though; he had to get out.

The roar of an engine crashed over the sound of the fighting and Mikey looked up a motor bike come flying into the bar.

Mikey blinked.

Silhouetted against the wide-open double doors was Frank sitting astride some kind of antique, World War II looking thing. He had a pair of goggles and he was grinning. It was a mother fucking bike and it had a _side car_.

“Your ride's here,” Bob shouted, popping up next to him and pushing a flailing G-man off with one hand.

Mikey jolted into action; ducking, diving and side stepping his way through the rest of the fight to the bike. To Frank.

Vicky T screamed in outrage from the far side of the bar. She was still clinging to Ray's back and trying to fight his hair. Ray looked like he was having the time of his life. He sketched Mikey a wave and flipped Vicky T over his shoulder. She landed on her feet. "True love never did run smooth, huh?" Ray shouted at Mikey and dodged a haymaker Vicky T was aiming at his head.

“Good Luck!” Mikey shouted back.

Grinning at Frank, Mikey pushed the bike backwards out the doors into the road and jumped in the side car. Frank gunned the engine and they zoomed off through the town and back onto the jungle road, the sounds of the fighting fading behind them.

*

The beam from Frank's flashlight bounced around the cavern, glinting off the wet rock. They could hear nothing but the drip, drip, drip of the water and the hollow echo of their boots over the gravel littering the bottom of the cave.

“So," Mikey said in a hush, "those spiders as big as your face."

Frank flinched. “What about ‘em?”

Mikey looked peered into the depths of the cavern. “They like dark places you think?”

Frank didn’t reply; he just kept walking.

After a couple of hours drive, they’d left the bike on the road and hacked into the bush again. Once they found the base of the rock Mikey has seen the day before, the map pointed them towards a set of caves, higher up on the foot hills of a mountain.

A couple of hours later they stood in front of a cave, deep in the jungle a mile or two past the stone fingers, looking at the map.

“So, where did say you got the bike?” Mikey had said, frowning down at Frank after staring up at the rocks for a second.

Frank had shrugged. “It was just there. Hotwired it.” His eyes were fixed on the map. Then he looked up squinting. Frank pointed into the jungle, pointed back down on the map and started counting out big steps in the direction of the cave.

“It says, La Boca de Dios,” he said, looking up at the entrance. “It’s exactly where the maps said it would be.”

Mikey nodded. “You’re sure about this?”

Frank glanced at him and back at the map. “We're here," he said shrugging again. “Um, on the map it's called La Boca de Dios. It means God’s lips or something.” He folded up the map and handed it back to Mikey giving Mikey a sheepish look.

“Thanks,” Mikey said. Mikey kicked at a bit of tree root and twitched his nose. He tucked the map into his back pocket.

“Mikey...”

Mikey really was a lover, not a fighter, and sure as fuck not a sulker. He’s leant forward and kissed Frank.

“I was always coming back for you,” Frank said, when the kiss ended and his eyes fluttered open.

“You _did_ come back,” Mikey said.

Frank grinned.

“Okay," Mikey said, taking a deep breath. "Let’s find this fucking treasure.”

Frank pulled a torch out of his back pack and they had headed into the darkness together.

The map said they were looking for something called _La Leche de Maria_ , or Mary's Milk. At least that's what Frank said. But so far everything they'd been able to make out in the cave was just dark grey and slimy looking. Mikey looked behind them. The mouth of the cave seemed very far away now.

Next to him Frank cast the beam of light slowly left and right. Mikey watched it spinning into the gloom.

“Wait,” Mikey grabbed his arm and nudged it back to the left. “What was that?”

The beam bounced around a little and then came to rest, glittering and sharp, on a wide pool of what looked like... milk. Frank swung the beam up to show a stalactite hanging from the roof of the cave, white with dripping lime.

"Mary's Milk," breathed Frank.

They both ran up to the edge of the pool and knelt down. “What, like, what happens now?” Mikey asked, pulling out the Map. Frank shone the flashlight on it.

He looked up at Mikey and bit his lip. After a second he stuffed the flashlight in Mikey's hands, leant forward and stuck his hands straight into the water.

He seemed to be fishing round in there for ages. Deeper and deeper he dug into the silt until Mikey thought he might fall in. Mikey was just about to pull him back when he seemed to hit the bottom.

Frank scrabbled around a little, then stopped and looked at Mikey, eyes wide. There was something there. Mikey watched him tugging it up from the bottom, hauling it out of the water.

It was wrapped in some kind of canvas, thick with the claggy silt of the pool. Frank tore at the wrapping eagerly, revealing - Frank held it up into the flashlight - a china doll.

He turned the doll over in his hands as if he were missing something. But there was nothing, just a cheap looking ornament, the kind you might find in one of those tacky tourist shops, or that you could win at a fair.

There was nothing priceless about it. There was nothing that _old_ about it either.

_We're too late_ , thought Mikey sitting back on his heels. Someone had beaten them to it and left this, this fucking chintzy _toy_ in it’s place.

"Fuck," Frank said sitting back, too. "Well, so much for that." He chucked the doll up in the air a few times before throwing it over his shoulder.

Mikey winced as it smashed on the rocks behind them. Frank stood up and started pacing. “Look,” he said, “it's okay, man. No one knows we're here, except Vicky T, right? So, as far as the _other_ bad guys know, the ones who have your brother? The map is still good.”

Mikey nodded. He hoped Frank was right.

Out of the corner of his eye Mikey saw Frank walk over to the crumpled shards of doll and kick at them. Frank stopped, hands on his hips, head lowered. He crouched down and started to pick through the broken shards.

Mikey thought of Gerard, still waiting for him in Cartagena, still believing Mikey was coming to save him. He stuck his arm in the claggy water and swooshed around. If Frank had missed anything, Mikey couldn't feel it. He pulled his arm out of the water and shook it off.

“Mikey," Frank said.

“It’s gotta be here, right?” Mikey muttered, spreading the map out and turning the flashlight beam on it. “There’s gotta be something else.” If there wasn’t, Gerard’s life depended on the other bad guys not knowing that already. _Gerard._

“Mikey,” Frank said again.

Mikey looked up.

Frank's eyes were huge. He held something up. Something big and bright and gleaming and heart-shaped.

“Holy fuck,” Mikey breathed.

Frank nodded slowly. “Holy El Corazon.”

*

It was big, bigger than any gem Mikey had ever seen before, even in books. He held El Corazon in his cupped hands, staring at it as they thundered along the road north, towards the coast and Cartagena.

The rock was heart-shaped, a glittering dark blue-black stone shot through the middle with a gleaming spear of white. A broken heart.

"So Vicky T, and Nally," Frank hollered to him from the seat of the bike. "How did they even find out about the map?"

"Gerard never did know how to keep his mouth shut," Mikey yelled back, leaning from the sidecare towards Frank. The wind was whipping the words right out of his mouth. " 'S why I never give him any spoilers about the books . They just end up in the papers! "

“But, Nally doesn’t know we went after the rock, right?”

Mikey nodded. Frank grinned. "Couple hours and we're there, Mikey," Frank yelled above the engine. "Fuckin' home and dry."

Mikey looked up at Frank.

"Here," Frank said, he shrugged off his backpack, keeping one hand on the handlebars, and passed it to Mikey. “Safer in there,” he said.

Mikey tucked the gem inside the zippered inner pocket and passed the bag back up to Frank. He shrugged it back on his shoulders and gunned the engine.

Mikey glanced behind them. There was only one other car on the road, a mile or so back. He sat forward and watched the trees whip past. He wondered how far it was to Cartagena; how hard it would be to find the address Gerard had given him.

Mikey looked back again. The car was gaining on them pretty fast.

"Frank," he said.

Something glinted in the windscreen.

"Frank," Mikey said again, and reached up to tug his sleeve.

The cracking whoosh of bullets flying past made Mikey duck.

"FUCK!" Frank yelled, swerving the bike across the road as he jerked out of the way. "Who the fuck is shooting at us _now_?”

More bullets flew past their ears and Frank gunned the engine. Mikey hunkered down in the well of the sidecar and peered over the edge.

The car was only a couple of car-lengths away now, and Mikey could see a vicious looking figure leaning out the passenger window and taking aim at them.

_Nally._

A bullet pinged against the body of the side car and Frank swerved again.

"FUCK!" Mikey yelled and scootched down further.

Nally's car barreled down on them, ploughing into the back of the bike. Frank struggled to keep control, weaving all over the road as Nally fired again and again.

"Hang on!" Frank shouted, and turned off the road. Mikey bounced around inside the sidecar as Frank swerved back again into the middle of the road.

Suddenly, Nally’s car was right there, battering into the sidecar, trying to force them into a ditch which opened out at the side of the track.

Nally leaned out the window and aimed the gun right in Mikey's face.

Mikey squeezed his eyes shut.

But rather than a bang he heard a shout as Frank swerved back up onto the edge of the ditch, putting a row of saplings and bushes between the bike and the car. Mikey saw Nally's gun go flying as the bushes swept past. Nally turned to his driver shouting and waving his hands.

The car came up on them again and this time Nally reached out and grabbed for Mikey’s head, his long fingers yanking Mikey's hair.

"No fucking way, asshole," Mikey hollered slapping and punching Nally's hand away.

Frank swerved, gunning across a stretch of treeless plain. Nally's car followed close behind.

Suddenly it was as if the sound of the bike engine had doubled, a kind of rolling thundering sound growing all around them.

"Oh, fuck," Mikey whimpered. Ahead, the plain seemed to fall away and all Mikey could see was as the river. And they were speeding towards it.

Frank gunned the engine again and aimed them for a rise in the riverbank.

The bike tore up the dirt 'ramp' and sailed into the air.

"Jump!" Frank yelled, and leapt off the back of the bike.

Mikey had just a second to grab his glasses and stuff them down his too tight pants before scrabbling over the edge of the side car and plunging into the rolling waters as the bike and sidecar crashed into the water next to him.

Squinting through the tepid murk, Mikey strained towards the surface and thrust his head out of the water, taking huge gasping breaths, only to be pummeled back under by the boiling rush.

He popped up again seconds later, shouting Frank's name.

He saw Frank's arm in the air, then a leg, then nothing but the bubbling hysteria of the rapids. Popping up again, Mikey caught a swift glimpse of Nally's car screeching up to the edge of the riverbank before speeding off again downstream.

Then Mikey went under again. After long moments rolling and turning and gasping, the current pushed him towards the bank where he clambered onto the rocks and dragged himself onto dry land.

After a few seconds Mikey leapt up and ran along the bank. "Frank!" Mikey cried, searching the rocks and fallen trees that littered the riverbank. Now Mikey was going to have to kill both Gerard _and_ Frank. If they weren’t dead already.

"Mikey!"

On the other side of the wide, rushing river, bedraggled but upright and alive, was Frank.

Mikey let go of the breath he didn't even know he was holding in a rush.

"Mikey! You okay?!"

Mikey waved, and sat down heavily on a boulder, pulling out his glasses and then burying his face in his hands before putting them on.

Frank was running a little way up the river and back.

"No way across!" he yelled.

Mikey looked up, They stared at each other as the water raced between them.

_Fuck._

He searched his pockets. He had 20 pesos. And in his back pocket… the soggy pulp that used to be the map.

Mikey shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun on the water. Frank still had his backpack which meant he had the stone.

"What do we do?!" Frank shouted with an exaggerated shrug. Mikey shrugged back and stood up, peering down the length of the river with his hands on his hips. "Go on to Cartagena," Frank yelled. “Follow the river. We're close now. Just, stick to the river. And… I'll meet you at the hotel. The Hotel de la Muerte, right?" He asked, and then turned toward the jungle.

Something hurt in Mikey’s chest. He lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Okay,” he said, a little quietly.

“Mikey. Hey, Mikeyway,” Frank called. He’d stepped into the rushing water as far as he could without being swallowed again by the rapids. Mikey pulled his bottom lip into his mouth. “I will find you. Don’t die, and I’ll find you. Okay?”

Mikey wiped his eyes and let out a shaky breath. “Okay,” he called, and huffed out a little panicked laugh. “Follow the river, don’t die, Hotel de la Muerte. Got it.”

Frank grinned, lifted up a hand and darted into the jungle behind him.

Mikey turned and looked at his own side of the jungle. The jungle looked back at him. There wasn't anything else he could do. Mikey Way set off.

*

Cartagena was what Mikey had expected when he first arrived in Colombia; candy-colored colonial stucco buildings with wrought iron and wooden verandas next to a bustling modern city. There were no huge bugs crawling from jungle leaves into his hair. There were no guns pointed at his head. And these buildings probably had kitchens, with food, and bathrooms, with toilets. It was a little like being home. Except it was so much prettier than downtown Manhattan. And everyone seemed to smile a lot.

It had taken him almost half a day to trek along the river all the way to the edge of the city. He must have looked a sight arriving on the suburban and then urban streets; torn, muddy, river-stained clothes, hair like a fright wig, knuckles still bleeding from the bar brawl, his glasses scratched and twisted slightly.

On the outskirts of the city, Mikey had hailed a cab, and another, and another, but no one seemed to want to stop for him. Finally. someone did, and he gave them the address Gee had given him: The Hotel De la Muerte, Via Espidair, Cartagena.

The driver knew the place, but when they arrived, he was reluctant to leave Mikey there. It wasn't a hotel at all; it was an abandoned building site down by the river docks.

Mikey eventually convinced the guy that it was okay, even though it clearly was _not_ ; where the hell was Frank, for example. But he pressed the pesos into the cab driver’s hand anyway and climbed out of the car. The car sped away and Mikey was all alone.

The feeling of dread and anticipation coursing through him as he looked up at the half-finished ribs of the building, iron girders and concrete slabs, with a crumbly old warehouse next to it, was pretty awful. But Gee was in there. Mikey could feel it.  
If Gee’d had to stay for, like, days in this creepy wharf building, straight out of a gangster movie where people end up buried in cement, Mikey could be brave enough to bear it with him. For him. He was going to get Gee the fuck out of here if it killed him.

Mikey straightened his back and walked toward the dock.

Mikey scanned the empty street for signs of Frank. He shrugged.

He strtched and clenched his hands, looking down at them. They were cut up and kind of a mess, and there were marks around his wrists where Vicky T's guys had tied him to the chair. His knuckles were blue and yellow and a sickening green from punching people. His palms were calloused from clinging to vines, scrabbling over rocks and fighting his way through the jungle. He was battered, and bruised and parts of him he'd never even thought about before were sore. His chest ached a little, too. It was like he had a whole different body. But Mikey had never felt more like himself in his life. He clenched and unclenched his hands and took a deep breath. _Yeah,_ he thought, _I got this._ Bring it the fuck on.

He took a deep breath and went into the hotel.

 

*

"And then, then, if you can believe this, he drove the bike straight into the river. Bam!"

The sneering voice echoed down the hallway Mikey crept along. The narrow corridor curved away from the flight of stairs Mikey’d climbed as silently as possible, and at the far end, he could see a flickering light, like from a fire, cast upon the unfinished walls.

"Motherfucker!"

Mikey's heart soared. That was Gerard's voice! He raced up to the door and paused, listening for how many other voices there were.

The sneering voice laughed. "Aw diddums. You should have given me the map when you had the chance, Way, then little Mikeykins would still be in New York and not dead in a culvert somewhere." Mikey clenched his eyes shut. It was Nally, that _asshole!_. "I had him by the hair…"

Mikey heard Gerard suck in a shocked breath. _No shit , bro._ Mikey thought, _By the hair!_

Nally laughed. " If we watch, he'll float past eventually."

Gerard made a pained noise and there was what sounded like a scuffle. The sound of skin striking skin. Anger flared in Mikey’s gut. Then Nally said, "You better hope he survived. Coz if he's not here the second the sun goes down, you're joining him in the drink."

_Okay,_ thought Mikey, _that’s enough_. He didn’t know what the fuck he was going to do, but he had to do something. He walked out of the corridor, fists clenched and head high. "Let my brother go, you total dick," he said.

Through the door, Mikey could see the unfinished fourth floor of the hotel. One wall was missing, and beyond it, Mikey could hear the river flowing past below. A bonfire crackled in a grate in the centre of the wide concrete floor, and behind that was Gerard, tied to a steel drum at the edge of the room.

Next to him was Nally, gun in hand, with his foot up on the drum, making it teeter towards the drop.

"Mikey!" Gerard cried, and Nally pushed the drum back a little more with his foot.

"Oh ho! The miraculous Mikey Way appears!" Nally sneered, raising the gun. "That's close enough." He nodded and out of the shadows came one of his goons who grabbed both Mikey's arms, pinning them behind him. Mikey didn't struggle. He sighed.

"Hey Gee," Mikey said, raising his eyebrows. "I don't know about you, but I'm kind of disappointed that real life bad guys are just as predictable as fictional ones."

Gerard stared.

The goon dragged Mikey around the fire towards Nally. "Excuse me," Nally said hands on hips and tapping his foot. "I'm in the middle of threatening you people here."

Mikey looked at him over the top of his glasses. “You can back the fuck off. I have done exactly what you asked me to. I got the map, I came to Colombia; I fucking off-trailed through a fucking jungle and fucking _bugs_ and fucking _waterfalls_ to get here after you tried to kill me like ten times.”

Nally scowled at Mikey. “Cavorting with Ray del Toro and bringing in a local, ah…” Nally’s voice trailed off.

“Adventurer. He’s a local adventurer,” Mikey said, raising his chin a little bit. Gee squinted at Mikey. _Who the fuck, Mikes >_ Mikey shook his head. _Not now, Jesus, Gee._

“Whatever. That was not part of the instructions. I wanted you here a day ago, and I wanted you alone. Not bringing the CIA, the drug barons, and a pain in my ass… uh,”

“Adventurer,” Mikey supplied again.

“…Adventurer, along for the ride. You’ve fucked this up, Mikey Way. You were supposed to be alone!”

Mikey felt a pang in his chest. He sniffed and raised his head a little higher. “Well I am alone now. As you can see.” Yep. No hot professional adventurer in sight.

Nally sniffed and pointed his gun at Mikey again. "You’ll give me the map, Way, or we'll both have a jolly nice time watching your brother drown, before I begin cutting off your extremities and you give me the map anyway. Kind of a win-win for me, lose-lose for you situation."

"That was great boss," the goon holding Mikey said.

"Thanks, Nico," Nally said with a smug smile. He sneered at Mikey again.

The goon pushed Mikey closer to Gee and Nally.

"Holy fuck, Mikey," Gerard cried when Mikey staggered into the firelight. "What did you do to him, you asshole?!"

Nally smirked. "Not me, must have been the _Adventurer_ ,” he said and chuckled. “Guess he didn’t make it out of the river in one piece.”

"You are such a dick," Mikey said. "Let us go and I tell you where I stashed the map. That's the deal. You don't like it, kill us both and you’ll never find the map on your own."

Nally's nostrils flared. "You know," he said getting up in Mikey's face. "I thought your brother was the dumbest piece of dirt I ever met, but you take the churros, my friend." Nally poked Mikey in the middle of his chest. “Running all over the country with that imp, without even the vaguest clue what you had in your possession. El Corazon has been missing for _thirty years_. Hidden out there inthe jungle by some old drug baron, who probably stole it from some other drug baron, who no doubt stole it from the poor sap who dug it up in the first place.” Nally ranted, waving the gun about, making his nervous looking goons duck. “The legacy of El Corazon is blood and violence and greed. And I am the latest installment!” He said triumphantly, hissing in Mikey’s face. One of the goons started to clap, but stopped when Nally pointed the gun at him.

Mikey yawned. "Oh, sorry, were you talking to me?"

"Ungh!" Nally cried, and pushed Gerard and the drum back a little further.

"Mikey, Mikey," Gerard shouted. "He's fucking nuts! Give him the map and he'll let us go."

Mikey strained against the goon's hands. _Fuck_ "Push him and you'll never get it. I swear to God. You'll never. Get. The Map."

Mikey narrowed his eyes. His heart was racing so hard he was sure Nally would hear it thundering in his chest and know Mikey was bluffing. He clenched his jaw and stared Nally down.

Nally's eye twitched, his foot slipped on the side of the barrel and Gerard, wide eyed and white, started to teeter backwards.

But suddenly Nally's foot was yanked back. He stumbled hopping a few steps with his leg in the air, arms windmilling, before falling on his ass with a yelp. Mikey heard the crack of a bull whip, the gallon drum tipped upright again.

"Now, now, let's all play nice," said Frank, stepping out of the shadows and reeling the whip in. Frank bent down and picked up Nally's hat – he must have had a thing for trilbys - where it had landed when he fell. He tipped it back on his own head, looked at Mikey, winked and said, "Whaddaya think?"

Mikey was pretty sure what he was thinking was written all over his face.

"You!" Nally screeched from the ground. He scrambled to his feet, pointed at Frank and shouted, "Get him!"

Goons shot out of every nook and cranny, armed to the back teeth and firing at Frank. Mikey used the distraction to throw his head back into the nose of the goon holding him. The guy dropped and grabbed his face, giving Mikey the chance to kick him right in the sack and take him out.

"Holy fuck!" shouted Gerard as the guy crumpled at Mikey's feet. Mikey raced to Gerard's side and started tearing at the ropes.

"Where the fuck did you learn to do that? And who the fuck is that guy?" Gerard said, rubbing his wrists a little once Mikey had freed them and then throwing his arms around Mikey's neck.

Mikey hugged him back hard. Mikey hissed. Over Gee's shoulder he could see Frank ducking and diving across the building site. A bullet pinged off the drum and Mikey pulled Gerard down with him behind it.

Gerard's eyes were huge. "Bro, I'm so sorry I got you into this; fuck!" He swallowed hard.

Mikey peered round the side of the drum and turned back to him. He grinned. "Okay, on the count of three, we're gonna run for the stairs, ok?"

Gerard nodded.

"Shoot the little bastard already!!" Nally screamed.

"One."

Mikey peeked up over the drum. Nally had his back to them, firing at Frank as he dove behind a pillar.

"Two."

Gerard was shaking. He looked exhausted, but his hand was tight in Mikey's.

"Three."

They shot out from their hiding place and ran. "Don't look back," Mikey yelled as he felt Gerard falter. They made for the far wall and hugged it, crouching to stay out of the firing line.

A bullet exploded into the wall, inches in front of Mikey. "Not so fast!" Nally yelled. Mikey froze, pulling Gerard close.

“Fuck that guy, seriously,” Gerard hissed. “I shoulda never fucked him.”

Mikey turned to Gerard slowly. “Ew.”

“I know,” Gerard said sheepishly. “It was the handle bar moustache. It confused me.”

“Oh Fra-ank,” Nally chimed. “Better come over here if you want your boyfriend to go home in Economy, not the cargo hold.”

Mikey heard a scuffle in the shadows behind Nally, and a goon dragged Frank out towards them his arms pinned.

“Don’t give him the map, Mikey,” he hissed.

The goon punched Frank in the guts and he doubled over.

“That’s enough, Nally,” Mikey said quietly.

“Don’t,” Frank wheezed.

Nally squinted between them, and Mikey pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to Nally. He snatched it out of Mikey's hands.

“ _Mikey_ ,” Gerard whispered. Mikey squeezed his hand.

"Oh, hey Gerard!" Frank chimed.

"Oh, yeah" said Mikey waving a hand in Frank's direction. "Um, Gee this is, this is Frank, Frank, my bro."

"Hi Frank," Gerard waved. “I like your hat.”

Nally put his hands on his hips, nostrils flaring. "Are you people fucking serious?"

Frank grinned at him and poked out his tongue.

"I like him," Gee whispered to Mikey, tipping his chin at Frank. Mikey felt his face heat up. "Me too," he said back.

With a sneer - he was good at them - Nally flicked open the paper Mikey had given him and turned towards the fire to read it. “Someone get me a goddamned flashlight," he barked over his shoulder. "And get rid of them.”

Two goons loomed in front of Mikey and Gee, another in front of Frank, and Mikey could hear Frank being hit hard in the guts.

“Gargh!” The goon shouted, leaping back and shaking out his hand. Frank was doubled over, but still grinning.

Nally looked up, and back at the paper, his eyes narrowed. "Where's the goddamned flashlight," he screeched. "I can't see a fucking thing!"

The goon went for Frank again, but ended screaming in pain, on his knees cupping his hand against his chest. Frank wheezed, his knees buckling with the blow and when he stood up again, something bright and gleaming dropped out from under his shirt. Frank caught it on top of his boot. It shone in the firelight.

Nally looked up. “Nobody move!” Nally shouted. The goons all stopped. "Not you, idiot!" Nally shouted at the guy with the flashlight. He grabbed it off him and shone it on the map.

"Oh shit," Mikey said. Nally scrunched what was actually the flyer for Felipe’s House of Hamburgers in his fist and rounded on Mikey, mouth open, ready to start ranting. But the words died in his mouth. He blinked. El Corazon sat glowing on top of Frank’s foot.

“Mikey,” Frank said, hopping a little on his other foot, struggling in the goons grip, “I ever tell you the Aztecs invented soccer?”

Mikey raised his eyebrows.

“Oh yeah,” said Gerard excitedly next to Mikey. “They did kind of; well, a form of it appeared in the Amazon culture around four fifty BCE, except... Oh, yeah, now is not the, ah, time. ” Gerard tapered off when one the goons waved a gun in his face. Everyone turned to look at Frank’s foot.

He was right by the edge of the floor, the tip of his boot hanging overthe river below.

Frank’s smile at Gerard was warm. He turned back to Mikey and lifted the jewel on his foot. “The aim of the game was to keep the ball off the ground for as long you could,” Frank continued. Then he kicked the stone into the air, wrenched his arm free of the goon holding him and elbowed him in the ribs.

Nally threw his gun aside and scrambled to get under the stone. Most of the other goons did too, ploughing into each other and fighting to catch it first.

Mikey ran to Frank and when they reached each other Frank cupped Mikey’s face in his hands and planted a smacker right on him. Mikey melted into it, but too soon, Frank was pulling back. “Vicky T is coming,” he hissed. “Get the fuck out of here.” Then he turned and clambered up the back of the biggest goon in the pile and leapt after El Corazon.

"Frank!" Mikey yelled, but Gerard was pulling him away, towards the door.

Mikey could hear a chopper in the distance. Seconds later, search lights started to sweep over the concrete and Nally’s goons were running out to the edge of the compound and firing on the chopper. Men in SWAT uniforms swung in and started firing back.

Frank had disappeared in the pile of goons all fighting to get to the stone. "Come on!" Gee shouted, pulling Mikey towards the door. Gerard was right; besides, Mikey wanted his brother safe. Frank could take care of himself in a fight; Mikey knew that.  
But then he looked back and there was Frank on the far side of the bonfire, fighting with Nally. The firelight gleamed off the cut surface of El Corazon as it slipped between their hands. “Frank!” Mikey shouted. Frank looked up and Nally took the chance to sucker punch him, grab the gem and leap into the river. Frank’s eyes followed Nally, then he looked back at Mikey a pained look creasing his face. Their eyes locked for a long moment. Mikey shook his head. _No_.

Frank looked back at the water. “I’m sorry,” he shouted and dived in after Nally.

“No!” Mikey yelled, but Gerard grabbed him around the waist, hauling him back to stop him from running out into the open space between Vicky T's agents and Nally’s goons.

And then there were G-men and Colombian officials everywhere, and Bob was there, somehow, leading them out off the building site and into an unmarked van. It was all over. Gee was safe. And Frank was gone.

*

"Boarding is now open for Air Colombia flight 335 to Newark, USA. Would all passengers of Flight 335 please make their way to gate 19."

Mikey checked his emergency passport and boarding pass and looked back down the departure lounge. He didn't see anyone he knew. Beside him Gerard fidgeted with his bags, carrying them as he juggled a cup of coffee and his papers for the flight.

"There's Bob," he said, pointing at some seats by security. They made their way over to him and he shuffled to one side so they could sit down.

It turned out Frank had gone back to Vicky T and convinced her that Nally was the one who wanted to smuggle El Corazon out of the country. While Mikey was making his way into the city, Frank was being choppered to the CIA headquarters in Cartagena with Bob along to look out for him. Bob said that once they were in Cartagena and Frank convinced them to ambush Nally and protect the Ways, he promptly slipped his leash and made for the hotel.

“Presumably to make a run for it with the stone, if he was lucky enough to get to Nally first.” Bob shrugged. “I understand that rock was pretty big.”

“I figure,” Mikey said nodding and swirling his coffee in the cup. He felt weird sitting at an airport, ready to travel but with no luggage. Like he was missing something.

“Nally turned up downstream and Vicky grabbed him. They trawled the river,” Bob said quietly. “They didn’t find anything.”

Mikey closed his eyes. He didn't want to hear it. He’d been kind of a mess right after everything. He’d slept, and by the time he was conscious again, Vicky T had already arranged a flight for them back home. He’d missed everything. He was pretty sure he preferred it that way.

Gerard shook his head. “That’s actually a good thing.”

Bob nodded.

“Means, like he got away. Right?" Gerard said, trying to coax a smile from Mikey. "Maybe, maybe even with the stone?”

“Maybe,” Mikey said.

Gerard squeezed Mikey's hand. “We don’t have to leave,” Gee said. “We can stay. Look for Frank? He, I mean; he saved our asses.”

Mikey shook his head. _If Frank had wanted him..._ He shook his head again. “I’ve got things I need to do, Gee,” Mikey said. “Besides, I came down here for you. I got you. He came for, you know, and he got it.”

Gerard frowned. “Mikey. But not before he made sure you’d be safe. And what about the two of you…”

Bob looked away.

“Yeah, well,” Mikey shrugged. “Oh! And speaking of, what the ever-loving fuck with creepy moustache dude, Gee?”

Gee turned red and swallowed. “That’s personal,” he said, returning to his sketchpad.

Mikey shook his head and sipped his coffee.

Bob sighed and stood up. “That’s your flight,” he said. Mikey stood next to him. He put his big paw on Mikey’s shoulder. “If, if we hear anything, we’ll...” He fidgeted a bit and rolled his eyes. “Ray, um, he wanted me to get your number and stuff. I’m sorry,” Bob said, wincing.

Mikey chuffed a small laugh. “It’s okay.” He wrote his address and number on a napkin from Gee’s coffee. “Thank him and Vicky T for me, kay?”

Bob folded it into his wallet and shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere near his hacienda for at least two weeks. They’ve got a lot of steam to burn off, those two. But I’ll tell them. When the smoke clears.”

Mikey made an effort to smile. “Thanks, Bob.”

“Take care, Mikey Way,” Bob said. He ruffled Gerard’s hair, and walked off.

***

_"I'm sorry!" Franc-0 said, his eyes searching Mig -el's. "I have to..." He let go of Mig-el’s hands, jammed his zero G helmet on and ran to edge of the docking bay. Looking back,he sketched a wave over his shoulder before diving out the airlock._

_Mig-el heard the sound of his propulsion unit firing and saw him shoot out through the forcefield, chasing the slip stream of Colonel Nol’s fleeing cruiser into the void._

_Ger L-do, ran to the edge of the safe zone. "You can't just let him go!” he cried, his oxygen compressors flaring. Mig-el stood transfixed, staring at the place where Franc-0 had just been, his bionic heart pounding in his chest._

_"Yes I can," Mig-el said quietly._

_"But…"_

_Mig -el shook his head. "He followed his heart." Mig -el said, reaching out to take his brother’s hand and squeezing it. "And I followed mine."_

_The airlock closed on the binary sunset and the brothers walked into the heart of the ship, to freedom._

_The End_

Mikey pulled a tissue out of the box on James’ desk and handed it to him. James sobbed into it.

"Oh Mikey,” he sniffed. “I never thought a Big Gay Space Romance could be so...” He honked into the tissues, “fucking _Romantic_.”

Mikey stood up and walked to the big plate glass window looking over downtown Manhattan. He crossed his arms and shrugged. "You like it?"

James dabbed at his eyes.

Mikey smiled.

"It's - it's the most romantic thing I have ever, ever…"

Mikey reached out and handed him another tissue.

"It really was." Mikey said turning back to the window.

"But this isn't finished, right?" said James, smoothing out the final page. "I mean, Franc -0 and Mig -el. They find each other again, right? Don't they, Mikey?" James hiccupped.

Mikey walked back to the desk. “I honestly don’t know,” he said, picking up his coat off the back of his chair and shrugging it on.

“Listen, I gotta run or I’ll be late for class,” Mikey said as he walked to the door. “Gee said he’d do the cover.”

James waved a tissue at him as he left.

*

He got an A in class that night for his short Batman script. The tutor had told him he should submit it somewhere; Mikey thought he might. That was what he was doing the class for after all. It’d been weird going back to school, a frikken so-called celebrity already, but he wanted to write comics and he had no idea where to start. And he wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of that now. He found the class out in Brooklyn. No one there cared about Edgar and Ella. They liked Mikey a lot though.  
On the subway home, he decided to call Gee and have him and Lyn over for dinner on Sunday, and maybe James and Jarrod too. He’d cook. Mikey liked cooking.

When he got out at his stop he had a text from Pete. _“Guys round for Call of Duty Saturday. Wanna be my wing man?”_ Italics or quotations.

_Only if you promise not to get your dick out the second I start kicking your ass_ Mikey texted back and he went up to his apartment, grinning.

There was a huge pile of letters and junk mail in his box when he got into the lobby. He dragged them all out, fumbled his way into the elevator, and entered the apartment where he chucked them on his desk as he passed through the study. Bunny, his new cat, wound herself around Mikey's legs.

"Hungry?" he asked her, and she mewled up at him and leapt up onto the counter. Mikey was hungry too, but he dealt with Bunny first, pulling out a can of kibble and spooning it into her bowl. He scratched behind her ears with one hand while she ate, and played his phone messages with the other. Couple from his mom, one from Gee, two from the guy he'd kind of been seeing, but wasn't that into, and one from a guy at the gym he'd given his number to a couple of days ago. Mikey smiled to himself. Maybe he had a date for this weekend after all?

He left Bunny to her meal, went into the study and flicked on the computer.

He picked up the pile of mail and shuffled through it looking for a pizza flyer, or something. Most of it was fan mail still. Mikey smiled. He still had plenty to say about romance, it seemed, and he kind of enjoyed writing to his fans these days.

There were one or two bills, one a letter from Scotland – that guy who wanted to turn Moonlight into a comic book again - and a flyer for Pepe’s Pizzeria.

“Pepe,” Mikey said flipping the flyer over and picking up the phone to call, “Tonight you are the man-”

Another flyer fluttered down from between two of the letters. He grabbed it and flattened it out.

_Frankie's Pop Emporium_ the flyer screamed in bright yellow flaming letters. _Platters, Pages and Piping Hot Coffee!_ said words juggled by some kind of vampire robot thing.

_Cafe de Colombia our speciality_ , croaked a tiny drawing of a T-rex in the corner. The T-Rex was wearing a tee shirt that said TOROSAUR.

Mikey would have waited for the elevator, but taking the stairs three at a time was way, way faster. He blew past the mailboxes in the lobby and threw open the front doors of the building, lifting the flyer in front of his face and opening the map app on his phone to determine which way to go.

“Aw, come on, Mikeyway,” said a voice by the lamppost. Mikey lowered the flyer and looked up. _Frank._ “Take the beautiful novelist out of the jungle and he forgets how to navigate by heart.”

Mikey stared, panting. He swallowed and held up the flyer. “Did you…?”

“Did I what? Come all the fuck over here from my record and coffee store in Brooklyn to put this flyer directly in your mailbox so you’d know I was here, wanting you, if you even remembered me?” Frank asked, looking up at Mikey and biting his lower lip.  
Mikey walked up to him slowly. He took hold of Frank’s arms, squeezed his biceps, and ran his palms slowly from Frank’s shoulders to his fingertips. Frank shivered, and Mikey arched an eyebrow at him.

“It’s a lot fucking colder here than in Colombia, dude,” Frank said.

Mikey smiled and looked down on Frank’s face. “You’re alive, you maniac,” he breathed, a little awed.

“What. A little river water can’t hurt me, Mikeyway.” Frank giggled. “I’m Indiana Iero.”

“Right. Not scared of nothin’,” Mikey said back, a small smile tweaking his lips, his fingertips running over the goose bumps on Frank’s inked forearms. “Not even spiders as big as your face?”

“Not even them,” Frank said, shaking his head. “Not even this.”

And he leant up and kissed Mikey, right there in the middle of the concrete jungle, amidst the traffic honking and the New Yorkers sidestepping them as though they were a mere bump in the road. Frank’s lips were soft and warm and alive against Mikey’s, and his hand was hot at Mikey’s throat.

“You staying?” Mikey asked when he pulled back.

Frank grinned. “We’ll see,” he said, and Mikey grinned back.

And the cars drove past, and credits rolled, and they _all_ lived happily ever after.

The End.  
 

 


End file.
